Taking seriously Marcionite origins of the Pauline letters

[Irish1975]

1 Clement contains two quotations from GMark and one quotation from Isaiah in a form already slightly modified by Mark.

Where?

[GakuseiDon]

1 Clement contains two quotations from GMark and one quotation from Isaiah in a form already slightly modified by Mark.

Where?

There's arguably up to 4 references to gMark. I'll start a new thread on it, since it's an analysis of Dr Carrier's article on dating 1 Clement.

[lclapshaw]

1 Clement contains two quotations from GMark and one quotation from Isaiah in a form already slightly modified by Mark.

Where?

There's arguably up to 4 references to gMark. I'll start a new thread on it, since it's an analysis of Dr Carrier's article on dating 1 Clement.

Can I make a request? Dump the Dr. Part. It just sounds like FU.

We all know who Carrier is

[Irish1975]

Ok whatever. I have asked repeatedly for specific evidence in the text. So far the responses have been unimpressive.

You say that there are citations of Mark’s Gospel in 1 Clement. I would find that amazing, since generations of scholars have looked for Gospel material and not found any.

Not that a knowledge of written Gospels would count in favor of 1 Clement being early. There seems to be confusion about what constitutes evidence for early dating.

[rgprice]

There are two "sayings of the Lord" that match material from Matthew that I know of.

[GakuseiDon]

Can I make a request? Dump the Dr. Part. It just sounds like FU.

We all know who Carrier is

It's one of the posting rules I've created for myself. In this case: if the person has a doctorate, especially in the field being discussed, then the first time I use the name in a post I'll acknowledge that. As they say: salute the rank, not the man. Sorry, but it's a discipline thing, and I will be continuing to do this.

[MrMacSon]

Carrier says in his recent blogpost on 1 Clement:

H. Benedict Green, in “Matthew, Clement and Luke: Their Sequence and Relationship,” The Journal of Theological Studies NS 40.1 (April 1989), pp. 1-25, and L. Michael White, in From Jesus to Christianity (pp. 335-40), agree with Welborn that 1 Clement was written in the second century on much the same reasoning: all arguments for the traditional date simply aren’t sound, as just noted (they both demonstrate this persuasively); and yet they incorrectly imagine it speaks of many generations after the deaths of Peter and Paul (Green...advances dubious arguments that 1 Clement used Mark and Matthew as sources and was a source used by Luke—none of which is plausible, as we’ll see shortly). But once you recognize the traditional date is baseless, a pre-war date enters play, and has been argued for over a century (from George Edmundson in 1913 to A. E. Wilhelm-Hooijbergh in 1975). J.A.T. Robinson, for example, in Redating the New Testament (1976; Wipf and Stock 2000; pp. 141-50) argued for the recent “persecution” Clement refers to being that, indeed, of Nero in 64 A.D. The historical reality of that persecution is also doubtful, though it at least has more evidence to commend it than Domitian’s. That means Robinson’s inference is stronger than the traditional; so if even it is unpersuasive, the traditional inference is even more unpersuasive.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/22313

He gives the hyperlink to the journal issue for Green's article at jstor, but the article itself is at https://www.jstor.org/stable/23963760

[lclapshaw]

Can I make a request? Dump the Dr. Part. It just sounds like FU.

We all know who Carrier is

It's one of the posting rules I've created for myself. In this case: if the person has a doctorate, especially in the field being discussed, then the first time I use the name in a post I'll acknowledge that. As they say: salute the rank, not the man. Sorry, but it's a discipline thing, and I will be continuing to do this.

As you wish. Just comes off as a FU though. If you're addressing the person with the doctorate, then fine, otherwise it just sounds insincere.

Just fyi.

Lane

[MrMacSon]

For posterity

Note from BeDuhn [on the Epistle to the Philippians]:

2.5–8 Tertullian, Marc. 5.20.3–5; Eznik,* De Deo 375 (vv. 5, 7; =Harnack vv. 6–8 only). In v. 7, Tertullian appears to attest the reading “of a human being (anthrōpou)” instead of “of human beings (anthrōpōn),” in agreement with Gk ms P46, the Palestinian Syriac and Coptic versions, and [with] Origen. Eznik* is paraphrastic: “another thing which they say is . . . (that) the Good One . . . sent Jesus his own son to go and take the likeness of a slave and to come into being in the form of a human being.” Barnikol, Philipper 2, has argued that vv. 6–7 constitute an interpolation introduced by Marcion into the text. The challenge to such a hypothesis lies in explaining how such a sectarian addition worked its way into every witness to the catholic text. To accept it, one must suppose that the catholic textual tradition of Paul depends on the Apostolikon, albeit with subsequent modifications.

BeDuhn, The First New Testament Canon, 2013; p.318.

Barnikol, Ernst. Philipper 2. Der marcionitische Ursprung des Mythos-Satzes Phil. 2,6–7. Kiel: Mühlau, 1932

* Eznik of Kolb, aka Yeznik Koghbatsi, De Deo (“On God”, p.183 therein)^ aka "Against the Sects" _441-9 CE

• an Armenian Christian writer of the 5th century ... probably identical with Eznik, Bishop of the region of Bagrevand

^ an abridged version c/o Roger Pearse https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/scan ... tation.htm

Also

The fifth-century Armenian writer Eznik of Kolb composed a treatise “On God” that includes anti-Marcionite arguments occasionally alluding to passages of the Marcionite New Testament. In several of these, his testimony confirms that found in other sources. But for two passages (2 Cor 12.2; Phil 2.5–6) he provides important supplementary information, and for two other passages he provides unique attestation (1 Cor 8.13; Phil 1.23). [BeDuhn, p.45]

---

Marcion placed greater importance on the authority of Paul than did any other Christian leader of his time. According to one of his early opponents, Irenaeus, Marcion taught that “only Paul, to whom the mystery has been given by revelation, knew the truth” (Haer. 3.13.1). A later writer, Eznik of Kolb, records a Marcionite tradition that makes Jesus’ revelation to Paul an essential completion of the former’s mission on earth, reporting to Paul the “purchase” of humanity, at the price of Jesus’ death, from the god of this world. The question naturally follows: how large of a role did Marcion play in elevating Paul to the central and determinative place the latter now has, both in the Christian biblical canon and in Christian doctrine?

It would not be at all surprising if those who see Paul as an essential part of Christian orthodoxy would be predisposed against crediting any role to Marcion in rescuing the apostle from obscurity ...

... Of other writers before Marcion, only Clement explicitly cites and endorses statements by Paul—but notably in a letter to the Corinthian community Paul had founded, where it would be difficult to avoid his local authority. Clement’s testimony makes it clear that some of Paul’s letters were circulating beyond the places to which they had been sent; but it is not enough to prove that there existed a collection—a Pauline corpus—in which a set of letters had been edited together as a text of Christian instruction. The first clear evidence of such a Pauline corpus is the Apostolikon of Marcion. [pp.203-4]