Marcion's Gospel and the Synoptics: Proposal and Problems, D.A. Smith

[enricotuccinardi]

A recent article on the subject by Daniel A. Smith is available here:

https://books.google.it/books?id=zheBDw ... on&f=false

It includes a critical assessment of Klinghardt's and BeDuhn's proposals.

[MrMacSon]

I can't see it via that link, but the references cited in the 2nd footnote (that I can see here) are mostly 10 yrs old. Perhaps they are just for laying out the early propositions.

Dean A Smith published on Marcion last year too, in Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity -

'Marcion’s Gospel and the Resurrected Jesus of Canonical Luke 24', vol. 21, Issue 1*

Abstract:

New reconstructions of Marcion’s Gospel, which are considerably more sophisticated than past attempts, allow more certainty when comparing Marcion’s text with canonical Luke. This essay examines the presentations of the resurrected Jesus in canonical Luke and Marcion’s Gospel, with a particular focus on the text-critical problems in Luke 24 (especially the shorter Western readings) and on the distinctive ways the two texts theorize Jesus’ risen bodily presence (especially the terms φάντασμα and πνεῦμα, and σάρξ and ὀστέα). Parallel evidence from the letters of Ignatius indicates that the emphasis on touching Jesus, who has risen in a flesh-and-bones body (as in Luke 24:36–43), does not reveal a specifically anti-docetic or anti-Marcionite agenda, but rather was an attempt to restrict apostolic authorization to the Twelve and their successors. These examinations provide suggestive, though admittedly not conclusive, evidence that Marcion’s Gospel is the earlier text and canonical Luke the later text, particularly given the problems identifying a coherent editorial agenda on Marcion’s part (assuming the priority of canonical Luke).

* That whole issue was on Marcion https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/zac.20 ... ssue-1.xml

[enricotuccinardi]

Yes the first references cited are just for laying out the early propositions. The author knows and briefly analyzes the most recent proposal of Vinzent, Klinghardt and BeDuhn. I find especially interesting the problems he highlights involved in BeDuhn's theory which I was used to consider the most sound among the three.

[MrMacSon]

Yes the first references cited are just for laying out the early propositions. The author knows and briefly analyzes the most recent proposal of Vinzent, Klinghardt and BeDuhn. I find especially interesting the problems he highlights involved in BeDuhn's theory which I was used to consider the most sound among the three.

[edited]
That's interesting as my preliminary impression has been that BeDuhn's theory is the most straightforward / least convoluted.

I look forward to reading Smith's article.

[enricotuccinardi]

Extracts from the article:

https://ibb.co/8m5YFWv
https://ibb.co/82VQvk2
https://ibb.co/Js2HmfY
https://ibb.co/wr0D5sV
https://ibb.co/0JngFsN
https://ibb.co/RTnP66R

[Stuart]

I agree with the observation (last slide) that without Q Marcion would have had to edit a pre-Luke "gospel" in the vorlage. This is precisely what I think went on. There was some prototype gospel (really a pre-gospel), circulated within pre-evangelic (monastic) Christian communities. There are many questions such a scenario implies which need examination.

But with that perspective, the missing elements of Q are not deleted by Marcion, rather they are additions from Matthew, which later were taken in the expanded form of the Marcionite Gospel we know as Luke. This of course is the opposite of the conclusion drawn by Smith. But I understand the thinking behind it. Theories of Marcionite origin have to account for the process after Marcion to explain the materials transfer from Matthew to Luke.

But this can be demonstrated by examination of the theologies presented in the passages, using concept of gospels being written in a sequence of response to the prior (i.e., Matthew in response to Marcion, then John in response to Matthew, then Luke responding to all of those and Mark). But this approach has not been explored by anyone that I am aware of, beyond this amateur.

[MrMacSon]

I find Smith's article quite frustrating. He comments on a number of issues, often quite superficially, and sometimes disjointedly, yet on a few occasions goes into specifics to make a point that appeals to tradition.

BeDuhn provides 3-4 pages of discussion on Q in his 2013 'The First New Testament: Marcion's Scriptural Canon' (pp. 93-6 inclusive) and it seems that has prompted Smith to both kind of rehash it and to riff off it. But Q is largely a red-herring if or given a proposed path of the dependence of Mark on 'MLk'^ as subsequently* outlined by Klinghardt as Smith alludes to earlier (pp. 146-7 of Smith's article).

* ie. subsequently as in Klinghardt's 2015 'Das älteste Evangelium...' being later than BeDuhn's 2013 'The First New Testament.

^ MLK = Smith's designation for Marcion's Evangelion.


Smith previously noted that "Klinghardt offers four redaction-critical arguments in support of the dependence of Mark on 'MLk'," going on to say "none of which is really convincing as to the direction of literary dependence." But the examples that Smith discusses to try to dismiss Klinghardt on the dependence of Mark on 'MLk' are mostly things in or not in Luke(!) (pp. 145 of Smith's article.)

Smith previously admitted that Klinghardt "concludes that the differences between MLk and Mark show “die ordnende und planvoll gestaltende Hand von Mk”." ["the orderly and well-planned hand of Mk".] (pp. 144-5 of Smith's article)

Smith admits "Klinghardt thinks that Mark’s ending is more developed than the “recht uneinheitlich” ending of MLk'' (p. 146), but then "Klinghardt’s “working hypothesis” about the dependence of Mark on MLk is examined in connection with a detailed study of the parallel empty tomb narratives", despite noting "Mark 16:1–8 is an abrupt conclusion", and by again referring to g.Luke!!; err, I mean 'CLk' (and Matthew, and that "Epiphanius’s texts [of 'MLk] shows an influence from the text of CLk").

Smith notes that

in verse 6 the absence of οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε, ἀλλ᾿ ἠγέρθη (despite the attestation for ἠγέρθη) in MLk provides the starting point for a linear development:

MLk 24:6 [null]

Mark 16:6 ἠγέρθη, οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε

Matt 28:6 οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε, ἠγέρθη γάρ

Matt 28:6 οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε, ἠγέρθη γάρ

Luke 24:6 οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε, ἀλλ᾿ ἠγέρθη

Mark reacted to MLk, Matthew revised Mark, and Luke followed Matthew.

Shortly after Smith wrote

Nevertheless, in my opinion, certain narrative and stylistic elements of the Markan presentation still suggest, when compared with the parallel presentation in MLk, that the latter seems to be a later improvement of the former. Mark’s
characteristic paratactic style can be seen throughout the passage (Mark 16:1–5, 8), and there are several instances of the historical present (vv. 2, 4, 6). MLk by contrast (on Klinghardt’s reconstruction) shows no uses of the historical
present, except in verse 12, which probably was not part of Marcion’s Gospel and which certainly cannot derive from Mark; however, καί as a conjunction linking sentences is found a couple of times (MLk 24:8–9; also v. 4, in a καὶ ἐγένετο construction). [pp. 149-50]

That seems both unnecessarily specific, and overall contradictory to me.


To then attempt to discuss Q in relation to proposed Marcion's Gospel text/s, and mainly in relation to BeDuhn's discussion of Q seems weird, and it is telling that the heading of Smith's section 5 is "On Not Dispensing with Any of Q'.

Smith's conclusion is also telling -

It is not difficult to imagine – but it would be impossible to prove – a scenario to explain all the phenomena examined in this paper ...

Such an imaginative attempt runs somewhat as follows. First, an author 'acquires' copies of a narrative biography about Jesus (Mark) and a collection of his sayings (Q), and combines them in a new composition together with other material of his own free composition. Our author may have ... [blah, blah, blah....]

In my view, this [Smithian but not Smithsonian Road-to-Damascus] 'scenario' explains the data we have when we compare the newly reconstructed MLk with the Synoptics, and it is, again in my view, less problematic than BeDuhn’s proposal, which categorically excludes Marcion as an editor, but also much more realistic than 'the imaginative reconstruction' of the origin of the gospels proposed by Vinzent and Klinghardt.
.

Smith had the gall to then say "Like their reconstruction (sic), mine also is impossible to prove." In a conclusion!

He highlights his article is essentially gish-gallop only covering a number of aspects of Marcion scholarship superficially.

[enricotuccinardi]

I think Smith's reconstruction in the conclusion is not even worthy to be commented.
Nonetheless I believe his analysis includes some good points when he deals with BeDuhn's thesis (pp.152-156) which surely deserves in-depth examination. I am especially referring to the Q material missing from Marcion after Q 3-4. If Marcion did not edit the Vorlage of Luke, this absence requires an explanation.

[MrMacSon]

... I believe his analysis includes some good points when he deals with BeDuhn's thesis (pp.152-156) which surely deserves in-depth examination.

I agree.

I am especially referring to the Q material missing from Marcion after Q 3-4. If Marcion did not edit the Vorlage of Luke, this absence requires an explanation.

I have always felt the Q hypothesis is contrived.

BeDuhn and others are adamant that Marcion's Evangelion had to have preceded Luke.

I think the developments from and elaborations on a proto- or core- Luke (whether via Marcion or not), through Mark, Matthew, John and Luke, as proposed by Klinghardt or Thomas Brodie*, are reasonable.

* The Birthing of the New Testament: the Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings, 2004. See the diagram here http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 245#p94245