Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

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Secret Alias
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Re: Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

Post by Secret Alias »

And before I try to work today. Things that "Marcionite scholars" never say:

1. the apostle wrote the gospel and thus the Marcionite canon as a whole is an "Apostolikon" - why can't people say this? All these books. All these dead trees. Never can they articulate the basic "concept" of the Marcionites. As Moses wrote the Pentateuch (or was understood to) and was subsequently called "THE apostle" because of it Paul wrote the gospel. The Marcionites understood their gospel to be "first" because Paul wrote it. That's the whole point of Galatians. Paul brings his WRITTEN gospel (even Tertullian sees this) to the Jerusalem Church and they copied it and "Judaized "it (with dominical logoi). Say it with me, one two three ... "the Marcionites thought Paul wrote the gospel." Yes the Church Fathers never quite spell it out ... because it is the death knell of their tradition. It necessarily shines a spotlight on the fact that their Luke was a secondary composition. And remember "apostolic" for the orthodox means "subordinate" to the apostles. For the Marcionites "of or pertaining to" the apostle.
2. there were two laws in Israel - the ten commandments and Mosaic Law. Marcion accepted the former but denied the latter. When Heschel notes this dichotomy is widely reported in the rabbinic literature. However the clearest example of this phenomenon is the prohibition from divorce (Qumran equates with "be fruitful and multiple" and that section. How can it be that the most Marcionite sections of the gospel all appear in Matthew? Obvious, the editors of the canon made the arrangement of the fourfold canon itself an "anti-Marcionite" project. Don't people see? Against Marcion argues that Marcion's claim to "antitheses" to be without foundation. The gospel is compatible with the Creator etc. But in a sloppy sense (the way most moronic scholars speak) it is about whether the gospel is compatible "with Judaism." That's why the most Marcionite passages were put in Matthew the supposed "Jewish-Christian gospel" (Papias's Matthew was different as was his Mark). By putting the Antitheses and the criticism of Moses's acceptance of divorce in Matthew, Matthew 19 "eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom" - MARCIONITE CORNERSTONES - in Matthew they redefined the most Marcionite passages "harmonizing them" in effect with Judaism. As such the creation of Luke was part of a broader pattern - a strategy for neutralizing what was "ur-Christianity" viz. Marcionism.
3. If I am right about Marcionism accepting or tolerating the ten commandments but opposing specifically "Mosaic law" (i.e. those commandments seen to be established only by the authority of Moses) then it necessarily points to a Samaritan origin for the tradition and Christianity. We get a glimpse of this in Ephrem's Against Marcion where a lot of time is spent with the notion of a "mountain" which reaches from the earth into heaven and which the Jewish god was associated and Moses and the Patriarchs. These are Samaritan concepts. The Samaritans thought that the visible Mount Gerizim was only the bottom part of "the tallest mountain in the world' - one whose summit was "Paradise" and extended to upper reaches of the heavens. One could in effect be "pro-Israelite" i.e. a Hebrew religion and at the same time opposed to the Pharisees and specifically Jewish religious practices viz. "the temple" embodied in the hope for the destruction of this "demon house" and false place of worship.
4. expertise on "what scriptural passages the Church Fathers used when combatting Marcionism" is not the same thing as knowing the Marcionite gospel. Yes Epiphanius is the one who got the ball rolling saying (a) he had the Marcionite gospel and (b) he was providing a list of the corruptions Marcion made but it is not that simple. First of all, for some unexplained reason he decided to take a SPECIFIC NUMBER of corruptions which adds up to a Greek word (I forget which I think it was 114 variants from memory). How and why was this accomplished? For instance let's suppose you or I were going through a specific recension of Matthew and the Pauline letters and we were going to summarize all the variants in each. How would we deign to make the notes correspond to a specific number? If you had the canon you'd presumably start from the beginning. So you'd open up the Marcionite gospel and start from the first line. What's Epiphanius's first variant:

“Go shew thyself unto the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded—that this may be a testimony unto you,”34 instead
of the Savior’s “for a testimony unto them.”

This is from Tertullian (or Irenaeus's Greek text of Against Marcion that was common to both). But surely this can't be the first "variant" in the Marcionite gospel. It is impossible. Tertullian mentions many things that Marcion "cut" by the time he gets to this story. So he's not actually going through the Marcionite gospel. He's compiling a list of obvious Lukan alterations to fit the claim that Marcion's gospel was Luke. Then we have him go through (supposedly) the Marcionite gospel that is in front of him - "miss" variants known elsewhere and proceed right to end of the gospel (Luke 24:38-39) which is again found at Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.43.6 and then proceed to go through the Pauline epistles and arrive at the magic gematria he intended (if we believe he had the Marcionite canon in front of him). How did he "magically" arrive at 114 if he was actually picking up variants with a text right in front of him. Obviously he did not have the Marcionite gospel in front of him. He or an assistant culled references to Marcion gospel reading from various sources.

Also, and this is more problematic. He repeated follows Irenaeus's Pauline epistles ordering. He tells us over and over again what he claims is the order of the Pauline epistles "right in front of him":
Here are what he calls Epistles:
1. Galatians.
2. Corinthians.
3. Second Corinthians.
4. Romans.
5. Thessalonians.
6. Second Thessalonians.
7. Ephesians.
8. Colossians.
9. Philemon.
10. Philippians.
He also has parts of the so-called Epistle to the Laodiceans.
9,5 From the very canon that he retains, of the Gospel and the Pauline Epistles, I can show with God’s help that Marcion is a fraud and in error, and can refute him very effectively
Notice the Irenaean/Tertullian language i.e. the portions of the letters which Marcion still "retains." But isn't it strange that if he has the actual Marcionite canon in front of him that the ACTUAL ORDERING OF THE VARIANTS doesn't follow from a collection that went Galatians, Corinthians 1, Corinthians 2, Romans etc. Instead his ordering is:
From the Epistle to the Romans, number four in Marcion’s canon but number one in the Apostolic Canon ...
The First Epistle to the Thessalonians, < number fi ve in Marcion’s canon >, but number eight in ours (no citations)
The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, < number six in Marcion’s canon >, but number nine in ours (no citations)
From the Epistle to Ephesians, number seven < in Marcion’s canon >, but number fi ve in ours ...
< From the Epistle > to the Colossians, number eight < in Marcion’s canon >, but number seven in ours. 1(39). “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon and sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come.”122
The Epistle to Philemon, number nine < in Marcion’s canon >, but number thirteen, or even fourteen, in ours. (no citations)
The Epistle to the Philippians, number ten < in Marcion’s canon >, but number six in ours. (no citations)
< From the Epistle > to the Laodiceans, number eleven < in Marcion’s canon > (totally mistaken interpretation of what Tertullian says about Ephesians being called to the Laodiceans another proof he didn't have the canon in front of him ...
From the Epistle to the Galatians, number one < in Marcion’s canon >, but number four in ours ...
< From the > First < Epistle > to the Corinthians, number two in Marcion’s own canon and in ours ...
From the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, number three in Marcion’s canon and ours
How on earth can Epiphanius claim that he has the Marcionite canon in front of him and he is going through that canon to compile the variants (and arrive at exactly 114 of them to satisfy from craving for gematria) and then say that the Marcionite Pauline letters are ordered Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians etc. and end up with a completely different ordering in his alleged Marcionite canon i.e. Romans, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians etc. It's complete bullshit. If he had a Marcionite gospel ACCORDING TO HIS OWN TESTIMONY(!) he'd have in front of him a collection of letters that went one way AND THEN FOR NO EXPLICABLE REASON HE DECIDED TO RE-ARRANGE THE ORDER OF HIS CITATIONS ACCORDING TO A NON-SENSICAL ARRANGEMENT THAT FOLLOWS NO KNOWN ORDERING OF THE LETTERS OF PAUL. Ridiculous! This is the second known instance where Epiphanius is lying about having heretical gospels and texts. He doesn't have a Marcionite canon in front of him but just compiled exactly 114 (or whatever) references to complete his now borrowing and regurgitation from previous writers.
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Re: Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

Post by Peter Kirby »

Ken Olson wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 11:48 pm I have been willing to evaluate the arguments for the priority of the Evangelion, to Luke or to all the Synoptics, that are based on the presumption that Tertullian and Epiphanius give us accurate information about the text of the Evangelion, and that presumption could plausibly be wrong. If it is wrong, I don't see how an effective argument for the priority of the Evangelion could be made - it's just too nebulous.
A few points:

(a) I haven't impugned Epiphanius. SA did. Not me.
(b) I'm also willing to try to dig through the muck with Tertullian.
(c) Even without Tertullian, Evangelion is still one of the best attested gospel texts that is known only from references. Lots of material.

So instead of taking it as a negative that Tertullian is second-hand (according to my arguments in this thread), I would look at the positives instead. There are a ton of scholars who have already looked at the synoptic problem through a 3 gospel lens and have hypothesized either a "deutero-Mark" or "proto-Luke." Well, here we have the opportunity to make such a hypothesis about more than a purely hypothetical text. That's very interesting, is it not? And given the precious state of synoptic problem research in general and the difficulty of making arguments solely from synoptic comparisons, it's also encouraging, is it not? So it's premature to despair.
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Re: Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

Post by Secret Alias »

The problem is that the study of religion never completely divorces itself from miracles and magical thinking. In philosophy Kant demonstrated that we don't see the real world. Studies of the Marcionite gospel are willing to accept that a third generation multiple authored text WHICH NEVER ACTUALLY MAKES EXPLICIT THAT THE MARCIONITE CANON IS AT HAND for the author an author who is acknowledged to have unreliable and unstable New Testament citations is a plausible basis for the reconstruction of a text that supposedly is a completely altered Luke but very few actual changes outside of the Western text are ever brought forward. Not a good start.
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Re: Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

Post by Secret Alias »

But is it good enough to keep a job in the humanities by assuming the best and being unrealistically optimistic by ignoring three centuries of work on epistemology since Kant. By gosh by golly, I'm all in!
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Re: Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

Post by Peter Kirby »

SA, is this supposed to be an attack on me (who is doing little different than you) or studies of the Marcionite gospel in general?
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Re: Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

Post by Secret Alias »

I am not as sure that you or I are right as anyone who attempts to reconstruct the Marcionite gospel is basically debasing the humanities as a serious field of study. Here are all the problems:

1. Tertullian does not say he has the Marcionite gospel in his possession, only that (a) the Marcionite gospel is a corrupt Luke and (implicitly) makes the case that he will fulfil the promise of Irenaeus to demonstrate the falsity of Marcion from the portion of Luke that he still retains.
2. Epiphanius does say that he has the Marcionite canon in his possession but he is a notorious liar, exaggerator, gossip, in short the worst witness possible for anything as serious as the Marcionite gospel. When he does cite exactly 114 (or whatever it is) citations from the "Marcionite canon" he claims the Marcionite Pauline letters have a certain order but those same Pauline citations (allegedly from the Marcionite canon that is sitting in front of him) they don't resemble the order that he claims the Marcionite canon is in WHATSOEVER. No resemblance at all.
3. Tertullian says that Marcion is wrong for putting "antitheses" between the Law + prophets and the gospel when the gospel begins in Galilee when it and various features of the gospel intro were predicted by the Law + prophets. When he introduces the Nazareth scene it is in the wrong order from Luke (strangely unmentioned as a "edit" of Marcion's) and developed as an explanation of the term "Nazarene" in the scene before and as part of a doctrine that Marcionite could not have accepted namely that Jesus was a "real" human being born in Nazareth and to parents that were known by everyone and that a census was taken where Jesus's existence was proved to the world. None of these could have been in the Marcionite gospel because they would have been a brain-damaged tradition and we have to give traditions the benefit of the doubt that they weren't something more than a mere caricature of mentally retarded demon possessed idiots.
4. Eastern sources have a completely different opening for the Marcionite gospel with Jesus descending not into Galilee but Judea and then "Bethsaida" quite specifically where Jesus again flew and passed through crowds. Given that the Marcionites thought that Jesus was supernatural a flying superman in the first scenes of the gospel would not only support their contentions regarding the supernatural nature of the Savior but also disprove the prophesy based (= dominical logoi/logic) of their opponents.

I could go on and on but I got a request to pay $2000 so I have to go but right there this is a non-starter. It can't possibly be true that all we need to do is "trust" the Church Fathers to be "on our side" in our reconstruction of the Marcionite gospel when they (i) don't tell us that they actually have the Marcionite canon in their possession and are demonstrable prone to use an author who advocating disproving Marcion by just asserting that you can merely "trust" their blanket assertion that they "know" the portions of Luke that he retained in his gospel (Tertullian) or (ii) that they aren't lying when they say they have the Marcionite gospel in their possession when they are demonstrably prone to lying and exaggerating (Epiphanius).

This
is
fucking
stupid.

No normal person would be convinced by this logic unless they were in fact in the business of publishing nonsense for career advancement.
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Re: Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

Post by Peter Kirby »

Fair enough. As I said in my synopsis thread, one of my aims is not primarily to "reconstruct" for its own sake but to "portray" an alternative to the un-"challenged" view that the Marcionite gospel was cast in the Lukan order, primarily with subtractions. If some bits of reconstruction fall out of it, that's well and good, but I don't imagine I will reach the heights of 80% or whatever fidelity.

I just understand that when there is an "authoratitive" view on the subject, it's not really enough to point out flaws with the logic. There's always the lingering question of whether any other view makes as much sense. The only way to answer that question is to provide at least one alternative view. Then it's possible to offer up something that can similarly be criticized, to allow them to be set side by side and to show that indeed there is another view that is at least as likely.
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Re: Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

Post by Secret Alias »

What would be the "experts" on Marcion give as a reasonable threshold for doubt regarding the testimony of an eyewitness? That there was a counter witness disputing the claims of this eyewitness? If that's the threshold then there would be no possible way of disputing Tertullian or Epiphanius. But surely there is a lower threshold. I say don't attempt something unless you know you are actually advancing knowledge. How is making Tertullian's and Epiphanius's testimonies advancing our knowledge of the Marcionites? Is it advancing the understanding of the Marcionites that their gospel said that Jesus didn't pass through crowds at Nazareth because it is obvious that people from Nazareth knew him and his family? This helps us understand why the Marcionites thought he was supernatural? Especially when Ephrem says the miracle happened in Bethsaida not Nazareth? We always agree with what our Church Fathers can be partially construed as saying (I still say Tertullian never says he has an actual Marcionite gospel from a Marcionite synagogue only Luke which is the Marcionite gospel so it is good enough to just pick up any copy of Luke and go through it section by section and "know" somehow whether or not the Marcionite kept a particular passage).
Last edited by Secret Alias on Fri Jun 02, 2023 9:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Enough of "Textual Criticism"! What Do People Imagine Marcionism Looked Like If You Visited Their Synagogues?

Post by Peter Kirby »

I'm trying to offer an alternative view on the text of gMarcion that can explain (among other things) all the "testimony" (not necessarily reliable...) at least as well.
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