Re: Origen on John: "Without Him was nothing made... of what is in the earth and the creation."
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 1:44 am
rgprice,
Those passages from BeDuhn are beside the point I'm making. The issue is not just, "that Marcion had a read a Gospel and then written his Gospel in response to it."
BeDuhn almost exclusively focusses on the Evangelion and it's relationship to Luke. He hardly touches the other canonical gospels in that 2013 book* or in his subsequent 2015 and 2017 published articles. While he mentioned Klinghardt 3-4 times in his book, he only cited Klinghardt's 2008 paper (which is understandable given Klinghardt's more substantive published works are later, starting with his 2015 2-volume book, which is in German). DeDuhn does cite Klinghardt's book in his 2017 paper (which was published along side a paper by Klinghardt of the same title: both had been given at a seminar or conference).
The agreement between Klinghardt and myself that Marcion’s Gospel is the earlier version, pre-Marcion in its composition, and not a tendentious derivative of Luke, leads to the implication that it is a closer witness to the textual dependencies of the Synoptic Gospels
Vinzent first outlined his proposals and arguments in his 2014 book, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels.
So, I don't think BeDuhn's failure to even mention Vinzent and Klinghart's [more] substantial arguments can be used to dismiss those arguments.
BeDuhn wrote in 2015
Nor do I think Tertullian's textual commentary about Marcion is trustworthy, but it does give clues as to what might have been going on.
* Where DeDuhn does touch most on the gospel of John in relation to Marcion's Evangelion and Luke is on p. 84, culminating in endnote 60 (p. 350-1), and on p. 85 culminating in endnote 67 (p.351-2).
fwiw, here's Klinghart in 2017
In his 2015 paper, 'The New Marcion: Rethinking the ”Arch-Heretic”,' BeDuhn noted there were various versions of Marcion's Evangelion with varying degrees of harmonization to Matthew.
He argued that,
I'm not sure about that (I can't follow or understand that, so maybe it's me)
BeDuhn goes on to say
Those passages from BeDuhn are beside the point I'm making. The issue is not just, "that Marcion had a read a Gospel and then written his Gospel in response to it."
BeDuhn almost exclusively focusses on the Evangelion and it's relationship to Luke. He hardly touches the other canonical gospels in that 2013 book* or in his subsequent 2015 and 2017 published articles. While he mentioned Klinghardt 3-4 times in his book, he only cited Klinghardt's 2008 paper (which is understandable given Klinghardt's more substantive published works are later, starting with his 2015 2-volume book, which is in German). DeDuhn does cite Klinghardt's book in his 2017 paper (which was published along side a paper by Klinghardt of the same title: both had been given at a seminar or conference).
The agreement between Klinghardt and myself that Marcion’s Gospel is the earlier version, pre-Marcion in its composition, and not a tendentious derivative of Luke, leads to the implication that it is a closer witness to the textual dependencies of the Synoptic Gospels
Vinzent first outlined his proposals and arguments in his 2014 book, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels.
So, I don't think BeDuhn's failure to even mention Vinzent and Klinghart's [more] substantial arguments can be used to dismiss those arguments.
BeDuhn wrote in 2015
Few researchers seem to have considered the fact that writers such as Tertullian were in no position to know the state of texts in or before the time of Marcion, nor did they have any independent information that would have told them whether Marcion’s or their versions of these writings were the earlier one. Even Tertullian himself acknowledged that he could not actually prove the priority of his community’s versions of the texts over Marcion’s.
Nor do I think Tertullian's textual commentary about Marcion is trustworthy, but it does give clues as to what might have been going on.
* Where DeDuhn does touch most on the gospel of John in relation to Marcion's Evangelion and Luke is on p. 84, culminating in endnote 60 (p. 350-1), and on p. 85 culminating in endnote 67 (p.351-2).
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fwiw, here's Klinghart in 2017
.
the Marcionite Gospel appears to be the root from which the whole gospel tradition emerges and with which all later stages remain closely connected. Obviously, every subsequent stage had knowledge, and made use of, all available previous stages of this development. This uniformity leads to numerous consequences, including the inquiry about the historical Jesus. Whereas the Two-Source Theory assumes two independent origins, namely Mark and ‘Q’, which allegedly validate each other and thereby claim a certain reliability, this model involves no such thing as an independent source. The search for the ‘historical Jesus’, therefore, becomes a completely different, if not an impossible, task.
John is included in this model. From the beginning, the source-critical separation of John from the Synoptics was artificial and arbitrary, because it was based on aspects of style and content rather than on keen literary observations. If we look at the literary evidence, there is little doubt that John is central to this integral network of gospels. The most obvious example is the passion narrative where Luke and John, time and again, agree with each other in opposition to Mark and Matthew.11 This is one of the features that never received adequate attention because of the dominance of the Two-Source Theory with which it is completely incompatible.12
Finally, this model is based exclusively on literary observations: the literary dependency is fully sufficient for explaining all aspects of the evidence. This has a number of implications. On the one hand, there is no need for employing oral traditions in order to explain the literary evidence. According to the principle of Ockham’s razor, the oral tradition is eliminated as a significant formative factor of the gospel tradition. On the other hand, the closely meshed and highly literary relations between the single stages within this model prove that gospel writing was a sophisticated task that required concentrated desk-work of textual redaction: our gospel writers were highly skilled editors.
11, Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium, I.276–403. Recent explanations of this phenomenon assume, therefore, the priority of John before Luke; cf. B. Shellard, ‘The Relationship of Luke and John: A Fresh Look at an Old Problem’, JThS 46 (1995) 71–98; M. A. Matson, In Dialogue with Another Gospel (Atlanta: SBL, 2001).
12. Cf. M. Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium (HNT 5; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 691, who states that no model of the tradition history can explain this complexity.
the Marcionite Gospel appears to be the root from which the whole gospel tradition emerges and with which all later stages remain closely connected. Obviously, every subsequent stage had knowledge, and made use of, all available previous stages of this development. This uniformity leads to numerous consequences, including the inquiry about the historical Jesus. Whereas the Two-Source Theory assumes two independent origins, namely Mark and ‘Q’, which allegedly validate each other and thereby claim a certain reliability, this model involves no such thing as an independent source. The search for the ‘historical Jesus’, therefore, becomes a completely different, if not an impossible, task.
John is included in this model. From the beginning, the source-critical separation of John from the Synoptics was artificial and arbitrary, because it was based on aspects of style and content rather than on keen literary observations. If we look at the literary evidence, there is little doubt that John is central to this integral network of gospels. The most obvious example is the passion narrative where Luke and John, time and again, agree with each other in opposition to Mark and Matthew.11 This is one of the features that never received adequate attention because of the dominance of the Two-Source Theory with which it is completely incompatible.12
Finally, this model is based exclusively on literary observations: the literary dependency is fully sufficient for explaining all aspects of the evidence. This has a number of implications. On the one hand, there is no need for employing oral traditions in order to explain the literary evidence. According to the principle of Ockham’s razor, the oral tradition is eliminated as a significant formative factor of the gospel tradition. On the other hand, the closely meshed and highly literary relations between the single stages within this model prove that gospel writing was a sophisticated task that required concentrated desk-work of textual redaction: our gospel writers were highly skilled editors.
11, Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium, I.276–403. Recent explanations of this phenomenon assume, therefore, the priority of John before Luke; cf. B. Shellard, ‘The Relationship of Luke and John: A Fresh Look at an Old Problem’, JThS 46 (1995) 71–98; M. A. Matson, In Dialogue with Another Gospel (Atlanta: SBL, 2001).
12. Cf. M. Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium (HNT 5; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 691, who states that no model of the tradition history can explain this complexity.
In his 2015 paper, 'The New Marcion: Rethinking the ”Arch-Heretic”,' BeDuhn noted there were various versions of Marcion's Evangelion with varying degrees of harmonization to Matthew.
He argued that,
"Since Marcionite copyists would not be familiar with Matthew, all such harmonizations should have occurred before the incorporation of the Evangelion into Marcion’s NT canon. Therefore, the existence of such variation in harmonized readings in our witnesses to the Evangelion suggests that, at the time Marcion canonized it, it existed in multiple copies that in their pre-Marcionite transmission had met with varying degrees of influence from Matthew."
I'm not sure about that (I can't follow or understand that, so maybe it's me)
BeDuhn goes on to say
What this means is that even Marcion may not have fully appreciated the implications of the “textual revolution” with its new valuation of the fixed text. He apparently found it sufficient to identify which texts in circulation should be considered authoritative, without carefully monitoring their acquisition and incorporation into canonical sets for use in his communities to be sure that their texts were completely consistent. As a result, multiple copies full of variant readings came into use in Marcionite communities. For all his focus on the merits of stabilizing Christianity in text, Marcion apparently did not fully make the mental shift from the oral to the written gospel and realize the issues regarding the proper fixity of a literary text. It is only when a text has been declared authoritative, and so much rests upon exactly what it says, that the concern arises to establish a fixed form of it. As the inventor of a canon, Marcion had not yet been shaped in his own thinking by “canonical” considerations of just how much was at stake in variant readings.
Canonization brought with it a fundamentally new attitude towards the text, opposed to fluidity and further adaptation. In the generation after Marcion, it was still possible for Tatian to re-edit Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into a new gospel, the Diatessaron, and many less successful gospel reworkings date to roughly this period. But the followers of Marcion had already shut the door on this further literary innovation, and by the end of the second century Irenaeus put forth a similar argument against new gospels on behalf of non-Marcionite Christians. These were arguments about the ultimate resort of authority, carried out among a literate elite of Christian leadership. (p. 177)
Canonization brought with it a fundamentally new attitude towards the text, opposed to fluidity and further adaptation. In the generation after Marcion, it was still possible for Tatian to re-edit Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into a new gospel, the Diatessaron, and many less successful gospel reworkings date to roughly this period. But the followers of Marcion had already shut the door on this further literary innovation, and by the end of the second century Irenaeus put forth a similar argument against new gospels on behalf of non-Marcionite Christians. These were arguments about the ultimate resort of authority, carried out among a literate elite of Christian leadership. (p. 177)