Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

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Giuseppe
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Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Giuseppe »

It seems that John the Baptist is found in Marcion's Gospel.

But he is described as "who, having heard his works, was scandalized".

http://markusvinzent.blogspot.com/2014/ ... n.html?m=1

In Paul, the Jews ask "signs", and in absence of them they are scandalized. In Marcion, if John the Baptist represents this same Jewish reaction, the same signs of Jesus scandalize them.

I like particularly the presence of the following passages in Mcn, according to prof Vinzent:

7:24 When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?
7:25 What did you go out to see? A man dressed in fancy clothes? Look, those who wear fancy clothes and live in luxury walk in kings’ courts!
7:26 What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet, that among those born of women no one is greater than John, the

Baptist. 7:27 This is the one about whom it is written, ‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’

7:28 Amen I tell you, however, the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he is.”

Marcion assumes the function of apt preparation and disposition (to receive a great, coming revelation) given to John by the Scriptures of the Demiurge. But to reiterate the usual marcionite point, again and again, that the revelation that arrived from an alien god was unexpected and surprising and scandalizing even for who, like John, was ready to receive a great revelation.

So in Mark's incipit the John's preparation for the Great Revelation is made better suited to what is about to happen. John is so prepared that he is shown as one who knows ALREADY at least some info about the Coming Christ: the his power of baptizing with Fire. The emphasis is on the knowledge, here.

I can agree already from now with prof Vinzent that this not-unpreparedness by John before the Great Revelation is a sign of anti-marcionite interpolation.

I should note also an interesting point shared by both Marcion and his enemies: the baptism of John is assumed a priori as an act of preparation for a Great Revelation. This talks about a mythical feature of the John's baptism, insofar it reflects the gnostic point that a good recipient (=the baptism's goal is to prepare good human recipients) has to be there, before a good reception (implicit: of the gnosis).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Giuseppe »

andrewcriddle wrote: Mon Nov 19, 2018 12:44 pm. (e.g. I am reasonably convinced that Marcion's Gospel was deliberately edited to disconnect Jesus from John the Baptist.)
for the reasons given above, I should disagree, here. Marcion's Gospel was deliberately edited to fit the Jesus's revelation with John the Baptist's preparation.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Stuart
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Stuart »

Andrew's opinion is not that dissimilar from mine. I am of the opinion that roughly 12 verses similar to Mark 1:2-13, which came from the common ur-Gospel were dropped from the opening of the Marcionite Gospel. (I speculate the ur-Gospel opened "In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea" preserved in Matthew 3:1; the book title was preserved in Mark 1:1 "The Gospel of [Jesus] Christ" which he versified.) The Marcionite author wished to emphasize that John and Jesus were from different Gods. The ur-Gospel(s) was confused on this point, probably due to multiple hands in the kitchen.

Tertullian (AM 4.11.3) is right to exclaim, Unde autem et Ioannes venit in medium? Subito Christus, subito et Ioannes! when John suddenly appears in Luke 5:33 (well his disciples) with no introduction. John makes a final appearance in Luke 7:18-28. Both Tertullian and Epiphanius report it is John who is offended in the Marcionite Text of Luke 7:23. Both also attests verse 7:27, making it clear that the Marcionite author is well aware of the last prophet theology with Elijah coming again as John (Malachi 3:1ff, 4:5), and in fact accepts. This is reinforced in Luke 9:7-8 (AM 4.21.2). But in verse 7:28 he flips this theology, making both reference to the fact that Jesus is not born of woman, but John is, and further despite being the greatest of the OT prophets (reborn) he is the least in heaven. We see this same purple/fine clothing in the rich man and Lazarus story of Luke 16:19-29, where the one wearing such clothing has Moses (the Pentateuch) to follow but winds up in the fiery part of Hades, whereas Lazarus winds up in the bosom of Abraham. [1] He has thus separated John and his God from Jesus and his.

But this John who does not recognize who Jesus is so has to inquire about him (Luke 7:19ff, see DA 1.26, Megethius, who quotes Matthew 11:2-3 version with John in prison), something that makes no sense for the great prophet not to recognize the one from his God. And in fact this is in direct contradiction to the Baptism story we find in Mark 1:19-11 (and paralleled in Matthew). Clearly John knows who Jesus is when he baptizes him, so it's perplexing he somehow forgot. In Marcion there is no conflict as John never baptizes Jesus; nor in Mark with just the Baptism [2]; but Matthew has both the ür-Gospel Baptism account found in Mark (Matthew 3:13-17) and the inquiry about the unknown Jesus of the Marcionite account (Matthew 11:2-6) and the Marcionite placement of the Creator's John as Elijah come again (see Matthew 11:13) as the least in heaven. How can this be that Matthew has both conflicting positions when he is the most out front on the last prophet theology (Matthew 11:13, 17:10-13)?

I am sure I lose folks at this point, as I think Matthew was written in response specifically to the Marcionite Gospel; he took a different version of the ur-Gospel (common with Mark) and incorporated many Marcionite stories and elements, but flipped them theologically. In this story he failed to flip the Marcionite theme of John being born of woman and by inference Christ not born of woman, in direct contradiction to Matthew's protoevangelium, leaving that stand, betraying that it was an external element he picked up in writing his gospel.

But I think it also gets back to the strange appearance of John in the Marcionite gospel, and the flipped script making John unaware of Jesus. It points to the Marcionite author being aware of a John's association with Jesus through the Baptism, but deliberately removing it and replacing it with another story of John (possibly imprisoned) in it's place. Luke restored the Baptism in his version but along the lines of his Adoptionist type of theology.

Curiously John's gospel also rejects the Marcionite concept of John not knowing Jesus. And he also rejects the last prophet theology so strong in Matthew, having his John say flat out he is not Elijah, nor any OT prophet. John is aware of both sides of the conflict and takes a third path on the subject.

Anyway that is my read FWIW. Yours will almost certainly differ.


Notes:

[1] There is strong evidence in the NT text that the Marcionites and Gnostics saw Abraham as the branch point between their "gentile" descendants and the Judaizing Christians who accepted the OT scriptures as "Jewish" descendants, per the Marcionite Galatians version of the two sons story where the Jewish son is the one bound to slavery, and also the competing claims between the Jesus of John's Gospel and the Jewish (i.e., "Jewish" Christian) religious leaders as to who are the descendants of the slave woman (chapter 8 of John) -- John acknowledges both sides claim the free woman, whether gentile (i.e., Gnostic or Marcionite) or Jewish (i.e., proto-Orthodox) Christian. Abraham after all being the father of all, so it is no surprise he is the go between for Lazarus (in Elysium?) and the rich man (in Tartarus?). I find it curious the Muslims also follow the Gnostic / Marcionite claim; clearly it was a strong rival tradition.

[2] Mark per usual does not incorporate any of the sectarian elements Matthew and Marcion/Luke incorporated, only expanding mundane details from the ur-Gospels. So it's no surprise he is missing the story of John's disciples, as this points to the story originating in sectarian circles, i.e., Marcionite.
Last edited by Stuart on Tue May 11, 2021 12:22 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Secret Alias »

Odd that this John the Baptist is unknown to Jews - Josephus is not a Jewish witness. Why would Marcion need to divorce the text from a marginal and possibly non-existent person? Isn't it more likely that the editor wanted to create an Elijah for his 'Jewish messiah'?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
andrewcriddle
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by andrewcriddle »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Nov 21, 2018 8:59 pm Odd that this John the Baptist is unknown to Jews - Josephus is not a Jewish witness. Why would Marcion need to divorce the text from a marginal and possibly non-existent person? Isn't it more likely that the editor wanted to create an Elijah for his 'Jewish messiah'?
See viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2325&p=51592

Andrew Criddle
Stuart
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Nov 21, 2018 8:59 pm Odd that this John the Baptist is unknown to Jews - Josephus is not a Jewish witness. Why would Marcion need to divorce the text from a marginal and possibly non-existent person? Isn't it more likely that the editor wanted to create an Elijah for his 'Jewish messiah'?
I strongly recommend you read Thomas L. Thompson "The Messiah Myth", especially chapter 2, "The Figure of the Prophet" to get a basic understanding of the concept, and the role John plays as herald.

The Marcionite author, in adjusting the ur-Gospel he built his Gospel on, could not accept John Baptizing Jesus. He did accept the concept of John as Elijah redivivus, which mean that his recognizing and baptizing Jesus would firmly place Jesus as the Christ of the Jewish God of Creation and the Law and Prophets (i.e., the Tanakh). Since this directly refuted the primary positions of his sect, and there was no way to talk around it as "to be read allegorically", he had to expunge it (same concept for the other gospel writers). But he went further to write new story about John not recognizing Jesus, and of being born a woman, and of being less than the lowliest Christian.

Remember Marcionite priority does not mean the Marcionites were the first sect (there were already many sects before the NT was written) or that they worked from scratch writing books from thin air. They published letters of Paul from tracts already existing, with a wide range of sectarian views. And they wrote a gospel not from scratch but from an existing ur-Gospel, which had some other communal use (a play?) prior to the Marcionites turning it into an evangelical tool. A tool so effective many other groups had to have their own. Hence we wound up with four surviving.
Last edited by Stuart on Thu Nov 22, 2018 12:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Giuseppe
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Giuseppe »

Stuart,

the force of the my's (and Vinzent's ?) argument (John the Baptist being introduced firstly by Marcion) is based essentially on the marcionite nature of the passage:

"...who, having heard his works, was scandalized".

How can you explain it without appeal to a marcionite intepretation?

In addition, I have noted in the past that also Josephus introduced John as ''the Baptist'' without justify why he is called 'Baptist' (the reader is left alone to derive the inference). If even Josephus could introduce a label without a reason, why not also Marcion?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Ulan
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Ulan »

Stuart wrote: Thu Nov 22, 2018 1:22 am ... adjusting the ür-Gospel ...
I hate to disappoint here, but while it may look snazzy to put dots on the "u" to enhance its Germanness, the word is "ur". After this public service announcement, I wish everyone fun with the continued discussion.
Secret Alias
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Secret Alias »

Er übersetzte Detering ins Englische
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Giuseppe
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Giuseppe »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Nov 22, 2018 7:13 am
puah.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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