rgprice wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 11:46 am
The Pauline inclusion of JtB is on the basis of his role as Elijah.
robert j wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:33 pm
I think the John the Baptist figure was a literary invention of the author of GMark to solve the problem of how to present Paul’s pre-existing heavenly JC figure having come in the likeness of men. And the clever Mark also wove-in OT relevance.
I have a very very very hard time to accept the presence of the baptism of Jesus by John in a "first" gospel, since the baptism of a mere man appears to be so much an anti-marcionite thing to say, second only to a "birth from woman".
In addition: isn't the entire point of the Hymn to Philippians that Jesus is NOT A MAN ?
Mk is extremely late piecemeal, and Johnny B was already present long before that in lost pre-synoptic gospels.
The prior role of Johnny B was that of a herald (kerux) or metanoia, akin to the herald of the baptism in the pool of intellect found in Corpus hermeticum IV. This preacher was appropriated by Judaizers using midrash on Scriptural texts mentioning Eliah. The action of baptizing is a late addition.
In his Five Books Against Marcion, Tertullian clearly acknowledges that he had in his possession and was at least partially working from a Marcionite text that he called the Antitheses that he characterized as an “opus” (Adv Marc, 4.1).
...
BeDuhn admits ... (highlighting mine) ----
Although few have questioned that Tertullian had direct access to the Evangelion and Apostolikon, we cannot be absolutely sure. A couple of features of his discussion invite caution. First, he frequently comments on Marcion’s interpretation and application of a particular verse, as if he is looking at Marcion’s Antitheses and drawing scriptural quotations from it, rather than directly from the Evangelion and Apostolikon. Second, Tertullian’s selective quotations from the Apostolikon possess a kind of running logic, as one quoted verse follows upon another in what has the appearance of a connected argument; yet that argument is not Tertullian’s. Rather, by selectively skipping over intervening material, a cogent Marcionite reading of Paul comes sharply into focus, which Tertullian does his best to disarticulate and refute. This impression is subjective, of course, and may be an illusion. But if Tertullian relied completely on the quotations of scripture in Marcion’s Antitheses, and did not have direct access to the Evangelion and Apostolikon, any comment he makes about passages missing from these texts would be suspect, the result of mere supposition on his part based on Marcion’s failure to quote them. (BeDuhn, The First New Testament, p. 35-36)
Unless I missed something in his book, BeDuhn does not follow-up on these observations. So I will.
If Tertullian, when writing his Against Marcion, did not have a copy of a Marcionite “Evangelion” nor a copy of a Marcionite “Apostolikon”, but rather the only specifically Marcionite material Tertullian was working from and responding to was the Macionite Antitheses --- then what BeDuhn and others have reconstructed are not a Marcionite “Evangelion” and a Marcionite “Apostolikon”, but rather the reconstructions consist of passages, from “Gospel” narratives (mostly from a GLuke) and passages from Pauline letters, that the Marcionites included in their Marcionite Antitheses.
Is BeDuhn missing something in Tertullian’s Against Marcion? Does Tertullian clearly reveal that he is also working from a Marcionite “Evangelion” and a Marcionite “Apostolikon” as distinct and separate texts?