What was Marcion's Gospel?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.

What was Marcion's Gospel?

Poll ended at Tue Jun 15, 2021 1:05 am

Post-Luke, Similar to Luke
4
25%
Pre-Luke, Similar to Luke
6
38%
Pre-Mark, Similar to Luke
4
25%
Proto-Mark or Similar to Mark
2
13%
Proto-Matthew or Similar to Matthew
0
No votes
Proto-Diatessaron, Similar to a Gospel Harmony
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 16

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Ken Olson
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by Ken Olson »

Peter Kirby wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 6:25 am I'm not talking about Mark 6:45-8:26.

I referred to the section of Luke, starting from Luke 9:51 (to chapter 18), that is mostly absent from Mark.
Peter,

Thanks, yes, I did misunderstand you, sorry. You were pointing out that Luke's Central Section in ch.'s 9-18 is present in the Evangelion [as are the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6, the Widow's Son in Luke 7 (along with the Sinful Woman and probably the Centurion's Boy), and the post-resurrrection appearances in Luke 24] according to Tetullian and Epiphanius. This would make the Evangleion more Luke-ish than Mark-ish.

And if we don't trust the testimony of Tertullian and Epiphanius we don't really know much about what the Evangelion did or did not contain.

I think I'm caught up now.

Best,

Ken
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by Secret Alias »

Tertullian's commentary is more complex than a straightforward "road map" of the Marcionite gospel. Geez.
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mlinssen
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by mlinssen »

Peter Kirby wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:14 am
davidmartin wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:00 am But a Luke minus the birth narrative - isn't that almost identical to Mark to all intents and purposes???
There is a long section of Luke that is almost entirely absent from Mark, starting from Luke 9:51.
I have started reading that now, going slowly, in Greek.
10, 11 and 12 are Thomasine plus a bit, 13 breaths Matthew and suddenly gets back to the polemics.
Thanks Peter, never noticed - but this certainly is an isolated section indeed. And quite lovely really, nice and soft

[EDIT]

Finished the remainder. 14 is like 10-12, 15-18 are very different, with a handful of verses that reminisce of the other chapters
Last edited by mlinssen on Sun May 16, 2021 8:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by Secret Alias »

The experts on the synoptic three eventually unconsciously become pimps for the subject of their very expertise- the synoptic three. It's human nature. It's how women trap their husbands too. They drone on about "their past " so that any man who stuck around will figure "I wasted 10 years listening to this drivel, I might as well stay." Her past strangely becomes part of his future.
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Jax
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by Jax »

I lean towards Marcion being proto Luke and pre Mark mainly because Mark seems to be a very tight Gospel in that it is written in a very concise and structured way. It just makes more sense to me that Mark used Marcion/proto Luke (ur Luke) as a base for his Gospel and tightened, polished it up and made it more entertaining while creating a Jewish setting for his character (which he clearly knew nothing about). The name Marcion (little Mark) would seem to support this idea as well as the complaint of Marcion that his Gospel had been Judaized.

I also enjoy the idea that Thomas is a base for Marcion, I just don't see any way to prove this to be true at this time.

Now, Marcion could be complaining about Matthew when he says his Gospel was Judaized but this seems a stretch for me as Matthew is clearly based on Mark and a form of Luke (Marcion?). I suspect that Matthew really liked the story line in Mark and decided to run with it and make a truly Jewish Messiah. I can see stories in an Jewish/Eastern setting being popular in the early second century after the histories of Josephus had been in circulation for a while.

All pure speculation of course.
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Jax
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by Jax »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 8:24 am The experts on the synoptic three eventually unconsciously become pimps for the subject of their very expertise- the synoptic three. It's human nature. It's how women trap their husbands too. They drone on about "their past " so that any man who stuck around will figure "I wasted 10 years listening to this drivel, I might as well stay." Her past strangely becomes part of his future.
How did Mothers day go? :|
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mlinssen
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by mlinssen »

Jax wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 8:53 am I lean towards Marcion being proto Luke and pre Mark mainly because Mark seems to be a very tight Gospel in that it is written in a very concise and structured way. It just makes more sense to me that Mark used Marcion/proto Luke (ur Luke) as a base for his Gospel and tightened, polished it up and made it more entertaining while creating a Jewish setting for his character (which he clearly knew nothing about). The name Marcion (little Mark) would seem to support this idea as well as the complaint of Marcion that his Gospel had been Judaized.

I also enjoy the idea that Thomas is a base for Marcion, I just don't see any way to prove this to be true at this time.

Now, Marcion could be complaining about Matthew when he says his Gospel was Judaized but this seems a stretch for me as Matthew is clearly based on Mark and a form of Luke (Marcion?). I suspect that Matthew really liked the story line in Mark and decided to run with it and make a truly Jewish Messiah. I can see stories in an Jewish/Eastern setting being popular in the early second century after the histories of Josephus had been in circulation for a while.

All pure speculation of course.
Agreed. Regarding my emphasis: is there any part of Marcion that "comes from neutral grounds"? There isn't, is there?
How do people go about making a case for Marcion being a source to anything, or vice versa?
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Jax
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by Jax »

If we actually had Marcion's Gospel then we would know more. Possible recreations aside, we are still without a Marcion Gospel.
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by Secret Alias »

Thanks for restating the obvious. You forgot to add, the sky is blue.
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Irish1975
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Re: What was Marcion's Gospel?

Post by Irish1975 »

Peter Kirby wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 1:05 am I'm wondering what people here think.
I wish I knew how much of the current scholarship, or the original source material, I would need to consume in order to have an informed opinion about it. I’m not going to plow through Tertullian and Epiphanius myself. I have respect for David Trobisch, and the English translation of Matthias Klinghardt’s reconstruction that he published in collaboration with his sons (?) is useful but still only a reconstruction. Trobisch says in his youtube video that scholarly reconstructions agree “maybe 90%.” Is that accurate? a good or a bad percentage? If accurrate, does the disputed 10% mean that Peter’s questions are unanswerable? (I have no idea, please don’t attack my ignorance.)

If we compare the situation of Q with that of the Marcionite Gospel, it seems we have a better sense of what the content of the former would have been, had it existed, and we have reason to think that it didn’t (Goodacre, etc.). Whereas with the MG, there seems to be little doubt that it existed, but more uncertainty about its content.
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