Paul's letters all derived from Marcion?

[RandyHelzerman]

I've been doing a lot of research on Paul's letter collection and Marcion and while I would like to be able to believe that the orthodox version of Paul's letters are independent of Marcion, I'm having increasing trouble supporting that conclusion.

Marcion is having his moment. *Everybody* from Tertullian on out has remarked that his Canon is remarkably bad at supporting Marcionite doctrine.

If Marcion *did* take a scissors to Paul's letters, he made some really weird choices, both in what was left out, and in what was left in. Some choices seem really arbitrary one way or another, the rest really, if anything, seem to reflect just the opposite editorial intention.

It's still a minority position, but it is a discernible trend that the more recent a reconstruction of them is, the more likely the reconstructor is to plump for Marcionite priority. And if you look at them side-by-side, in parallel columns, its really hard not to think that the Marcionite version is more coherent.

But I do look forward to reading all of the arguments from the other posters.

[andrewcriddle]

However in the majority of cases where Clabeaux claims the reading is secondary on internal evidence appear IMO sound. A list of these follows.
Andrew Criddle

Andrew, do you have a citation for what work this list is quoted from?

It is a list of cases where I think Clabeaux is convincing. I.E. It is based on Clabeaux but leaves out the examples which IMO are unconvincing.

Could you also give me feedback on my assertion that (1 Cor. 15:29) is demonstrably Marcionite (from Detering).

Our earliest evidence that Marcionites carried out a ritual of baptism for the dead seems to be Chrysostom in the late 4th century. The apparent basis for this practice is concern about Catechumens who die unbaptized. It seems unclear that this is a practice introduced by Marcion as distinct from a pre-Marcionite practice later dropped by the orthodox or a post-Marcionite development. The absence of any clear reference to such a Marcionite practice in Tertullian Against Marcion may suggest that it is a post-Marcionite development.

Andrew Criddle

EDITED TO ADD
a/ There is a passage in Epiphanius similar to Chrysostom and of roughly the same date.

b/ Some scholars do regard Tertullian as referring to a Marcionite practice of vicarious baptism but IMO this is interpreting Tertullian on the basis of later (4th century) writers. For the Latin see https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/tertull ... nem5.shtml and for a more recent English translation https://www.tertullian.org/articles/eva ... k5_eng.htm .

c/ What may be the earliest surviving interpretation of this passage is Theodotus according to Clement Excerpta

And when the Apostle said, “Else what shall they do who are baptised for the dead?” . . . For, he says, the angels of whom we are portions were baptised for us. But we are dead, who are deadened by this existence, but the males are alive who did not participate in this existence.

“If the dead rise not why, then, are we baptised?” Therefore we are raised up “equal to angels,” and restored to unity with the males, member for member. Now they say “those who are baptised for us, the dead,” are the angels who are baptised for us, in order that when we, too, have the Name, we may not be hindered and kept back by the Limit and the Cross from entering the Pleroma. Wherefore, at the laying on of hands they say at the end, “for the angelic redemption” that is, for the one which the angels also have, in order that the person who has received the redemption may, be baptised in the same Name in which his angel had been baptised before him. Now the angels were baptised in the beginning, in the redemption of the Name which descended upon Jesus in the dove and redeemed him. And redemption was necessary even for Jesus, in order that, approaching through Wisdom, he might not be detained by the Notion of the Deficiency in which he was inserted, as Theodotus says.

[ebion]

It is a list of cases where I think Clabeaux is convincing. I.E. It is based on Clabeaux but leaves out the examples which IMO are unconvincing.

Andrew, do you have a citation for what work this list is quoted from?

Could you also give me feedback on my assertion that (1 Cor. 15:29) is demonstrably Marcionite (from Detering).

Our earliest evidence that Marcionites carried out a ritual of baptism for the dead seems to be Chrysostom in the late 4th century. ... It seems unclear that this is a practice introduced by Marcion as distinct from a pre-Marcionite practice later dropped by the orthodox or a post-Marcionite development. The absence of any clear reference to such a Marcionite practice in Tertullian Against Marcion may suggest that it is a post-Marcionite development.
Andrew Criddle

What you write excellent for my purposes - your references are very valuable to me because there is so little on vicarious baptism (and rightly so because I think it's a monstrosity). Additionally, I'll go through them carefully to see if they are doing it, or just talking about Faul talking about doing it: I haven't found traces of the earliest Vicarious Baptism ritual yet, not that I'm looking hard. (Faul being defined as MarcionOrLater).

So I'll restate my question:

Could you also give me feedback on my assertion that (1 Cor. 15:29) is demonstrably Marcionite or later (from Detering).

I'll state the heart of my assertion here:

There is absolutely no way proxy baptism could be in a pre-60 AD story line, no matter when it was written.​
NO WAY. The Jamesian church was less than 30 years old, and they were all​ deep Hebrew believers (except the Apostate SPaul).​

I'm only hoping to show that 1Cor. has prima-facia proof that it was not wriiten pre-63 AD, and hence I can tar the Detering's First4 (Hauptbreiefe), and maybe all of them, with the False brush and call them Faulines.

And throw them out of my canon.

My aim here is to justify the Ebionaen rejection of Paul, which I am interpreting to be a rejection of the >=Marcionite Faulines and its Crowleyist theology.

EDITED TO ADD

Thanks for those valuable references I had not detected.

My argument is that that verse sets the earliest date for 1Cor. and by implication Detering's First4 Faulines (Hauptbreiefe), so personally I wouldn't argue "absence of any clear reference to such a Marcionite practice in Tertullian" with respect to the date of the First4, as I'll hapilly concede that to be >= 144 AD. I might use it to argue nobody did the monstrous practice anyway, but that would be a digression here.

[ebion]

b/ Some scholars do regard Tertullian as referring to a Marcionite practice of vicarious baptism but IMO this is interpreting Tertullian on the basis of later (4th century) writers. For the Latin see https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/tertull ... nem5.shtml and for a more recent English translation https://www.tertullian.org/articles/eva ... k5_eng.htm .

I know that book because it has my favorite line in all of Tertullian:

I desire to hear from Marcion the origin of Paul the apostle.

(I sometimes get the feeling Tertullian is pulling his punches to avoid being considered (too) unorthodox.)

I agree with you, and go further as I see it just as a quote by Tertullian of 1Cor. 15 because of the "he asks,". My question is more: what historical evidence is there, before ~142 AD, against me labelling proxy baptism a MarcioniteOrLater ritual, to stop me from labelling 1Cor. a Marcionite writing because of that verse. That's the argument in that JHC paper by Detering I link to. Detering also does a good demolition of the authenticity of the Ignatian letters (all "recensions") that might be used to claim that Paul's letters were extant before Marcion.

I think it's a strong theological argument. I think I could also make the argument that Romans 7 is pure Marcionite theology: dead Gods. (I'm sure others already have; I'm an amateur at this).

QED: I can tar the Faulines with the brush of MarcionOrLater, and throw them out of the Ebionaen Canon.

[rgprice]

Just to clarify my position on this now. I don't think that Marcion created or revised any of the works associated with him. I don't think there really was such a thing as "Marcionite scriptures". I think Marcion did make use of a Gospel and Pauline letter collection, but that he was merely using an existing set of works. His views were derived from his reading of those works. Regardless of whatever Tertullian and other said about him and the scriptures supposedly used by him, it seems to me that the most reasonable explanation for his views is that his views came from the writings that he read, in just the same way that the views of orthodoxy come from the works that orthodox Christians read.

[dbz]

[It] seems to me that the most reasonable explanation for his views is that his views came from the writings that he read..

• Which was the gospel of Chrestianity—*Ev, as per mlinssen

Where does Chrestian *Ev fall on the Plato pro-gnosis chart?

	Plato_v1.0	Gnostic dualism	Plato_v2.0	Gnostic monism	Plato_v3.0	…	IS XS and "One God, One Emperor, One Church".
Evil is	Material World	The anti-father	Sans virtues in the chain of being
Good is	Gnosis	The father (+mother Dyad possibly)	The Monad
Humans can transcend	Yes	Yes	Yes
Transcend via ...	Self perfection	Logos
Earth formed by	Neutral Demiurge	Evil Demiurge	Negative Demiurgy

• Or the scripture was possibly no-nosis

There is no name for a non-gnostic, mystical branch of Christianity even though it leaves traces everywhere, why is that?

[davidmartin]

another angle is the opposition to pharisees. in GD (Gnostic Dualism) they're working for the bad guy
Thomas is the least GD form of this opposition. The pharisees are just blind dudes hiding the keys of gnosis, they're operating on the dude level only. It's less gnostic than the NT

Strange bedfellows orthodox and gnostic for different reasons want the pharisees be working for the bad guy (John gospel / Matt / Marcion&Paul(?) / Gnostics)
The source material they had wasn't good enough so the great opposition of IC in Thomas to religious leaders is useful and they think, hey lets expand on that. lets add a little spice don't matter if they're gnostics or some bishop
Anyone saying, this is new ideas. blah blah we can't hear you this is the new dope, the real dope. Thomas? pffft that's old hat, out of style, if it's the original sayings, never mind that little detail

[dbz]

It's less gnostic than the NT

What are the "gnostic" elements in gMark?

[davidmartin]

What are the "gnostic" elements in gMark?

that's an awkward question dbz, damn. there aren't really any in Mark or Luke or Matthew. except for where Satan pops up and granted any docetic readings (edit)
I see the gnostic elements really in the epistles and John (redacted layer?)

I'm researching Thomas and the Odes atm and the opponent there seems to be religious/political leaders and when this gets mythologised simply 'death' as a concept.. the Odes personify him like they do with nouns but he isn't Satan or the Jewish deity. It's just the traditional Jesus teaching 'let the dead bury their dead' and spiritual death is the enemy, nothing more? True, this is still a form of Gnosis without some of the cosmic angles and a different world-view but then it's not really Gnostic which is why i wish there was this other category. Could be the same thing as mlinssen's Chrestians...

PS I do admit its somewhat unclear what is going on exactly in Thomas and the Odes. There are things that might anticipate a gnostic or orthodox reading. I wonder, is the lack of mythological dualism intentional. Non-dualism would have been going against the grain, is it a surprise to see dualism get added? (or perhaps altered from one that is a life vs death Gnosis)
Also, dualism, the positing of divine opposition in the form of Satan runs up against monism is that a factor. Monotheism doesn't always equal an angry sky god, you can have Marcion's good God on his own, right?
this particular avenue of research is very interesting/thought provoking its kind of virgin turf

[RandyHelzerman]

I have arguments about the orthodox Paul's epistles predated Marcion's rendition of them:
http://historical-jesus.info/73.html

This seems to redirect to a bogus website. Was this a typo, or am I just not in on the joke?