Giuseppe wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 9:23 pm
Ken Olson wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2024 9:26 am
Giuseppe wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2024 12:28 pm
also Klinghardt assumes that canonical Luke knew Matthew so I am not opposed to the idea.
If we accept also that canonical Luke knew and used Matthew, then that places all three synoptic gospels before c. 130 CE.
why? Are you aware that Vinzent argues that the 5 gospels (*Ev plus the canonicals) were written in less than a month in Rome, so eluding entirely the question about a strict chronological sequence (apart the identity of the first gospel).
No, I was not Could you give a citation for where Vinzent argues this? I'd like to read if for myself.
Note that you have quoted me in a context where the my intention is the confutation of the idea that Luke had derived the idea of inventing an infancy narrative from Matthew.
Yes, but the context in which you or Klinghardt say that canonical Luke knew Matthew is irrelevant to the fact that this means we must date Matthew before canonical Luke.
In more general terms, the elephant in the room (a very apt expression in this case) supporting the *Ev's priority over Matthew is the presence of the birth story in Matthew. The birth story is too much connected with the interpolated bit in Galatians 4:4, "born by woman, born under the law". It is a blatant anti-marcionite interpolation and the mere recognition of it as such makes the *Ev's priority over Matthew infinitely more probable than the vice versa.
I do not accept your implied claim that the only plausible explanation of Gal 4.4 and the birth (and infancy) narrative in Matthew is that they are anti-Marcionite, nor that the anti-Marcionite explanation is clearly the best explanation.
You may always reply by saying that the expression "born by woman, born under the law" is genuinely pauline, but frankly I am not interested in even evaluating a such hypothesis, because the its implicit corollary is that there are not interpolations at all in the pauline epistles (if even the bit of Gal 4:4 is considered genuine).
It is perfectly possible to believe Gal 4.4 is authentic and still believe there are interpolations in the Pauline epistles. I do, and so does Geza Vermes (citation below). If I were not interested in evaluating hypotheses I thought were pretty clearly wrong, I would interact with this forum far less than I do. But you are certainly free not to engage with anything you don't want to.
Note that if Geza Vermes accused the hymn to Philippians of being a marcionite docetic interpolation, then I am justified in thinking that, assuming the authenticity of the hymn, the earliest belief was in the form of U : descent already adult, death, ascent. A birth story for Jesus is by definition a late addition.
I'm aware that Vermes argues that the hymn in Philippians 2.6-11 is a second century interpolation on (Changing Faces of Jesus, 2000, 377-378), but I don't know where he says anything about it being Marcionite or docetic. Are those his words or yours? Vermes argues:
The expressions 'in the form of God', 'grasping equality from God',
and 'emptying himself' echo mythological concepts familiar from the
Gospel of John and from later heretical Gnostic speculation. If so,
chronologically they point to the early second century AD rather than
the age of Paul. The hymn makes much better sense if it is taken as an
existing liturgical composition inserted into the letter to the Philippians
not by Paul himself but by a later editor. The fact that this poem
can be removed without spoiling the general meaning' of the chapter
strongly favours the theory of its post-Pauline origin [Vermes, Faces, 78-79.
Vermes' argument is that Paul could not have had a high christology because high christologies did not exist until later. Therefore passages in Paul that indicate a high christology are later interpolations. It's a pretty dogmatic argument.
It seems that we've been over this ground about the birth stories before. I think writers could add birth story material (as Matt and Luke do with Mark) or they could omit to use it (as does John, whom I hold to have known Matt and Luke). Birth stories are not a unidirectional indicator, nor are they necessarily anti-Marcionite.
Best,
Ken