Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

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neilgodfrey
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 8:50 am Would be interesting to know more about his approach. It looks like he's got several sections that he doesn't cite a source for. Is theer a book that explains this more?
Here is the background that I read and that led me to the reconstruction .... it was posted by Mr MacSon at viewtopic.php?p=129171#p129171

Here is a machine translation of that article:

THE MARCIONITE EVANGELION.docx
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Stuart
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by Stuart »

[Preamble]
I've made some Marcionite text reconstructions (none I feel is final or definitive, although some elements I feel more strongly are correct than others), and I have come to the opinion that there is no single systemic method to find the Marcionite text. And that may be a misnomer anyway, as the text was living and varied significantly from locale to locale, even within sectarian forms.

The other thing I've come to realize, more from Paul than the Gospel, is that the Marcionite text was in fact the same as the Orthodox text, random local variants aside, up until the point the Marcionites separated. It was only after the separation that the appearance of an Independent text arose, as the Marcionite movement was under considerably less pressure to adjust and evolve the text to deal with competing internal factions. The Marcionite movement had much earlier shifted to the preservation mode of it's orthodoxy and text than the mainstream church which was remained unsettled with many competing movements or sects that had yet to coalesce into an orthodoxy. A rough guess would be the Marcionites settled into orthodoxy during the reign of Antoninus, while the mainstream did not move into it's orthodox textual preservation mode until the reign of Severus.

The point being, the Marcionite text was neither original nor fully distinctively Marcionite (it did not develop in Marcionite only circles) any more than any other text in Canon was fully orthodox of any kind. And when a movement switches into preservation mode, inconsistencies in scripture are dealt with by hermeneutics and harmonizing conflicting texts to fit that. In Catholicism this approach eventually led to the formal methods of scholasticism. Thus the Marcionite text, as best we can recover it, represents an earlier form of Paul and an earlier form of one of the Synoptic Gospel branches than our orthodox text, not a separate or sectarian text (in the main; there were a few post rupture tendentious textual adjustments).
[/Preamble]

Having gotten the necessary preamble to frame my response out of the way, I can make my comment. It is always good to have another reconstruction effort. Andre Wautier's is built primarily upon the three primary sources that all reconstructions begin with. It's evident he makes a number of eclectic choices, for example, verse 4 of chapter 1, that are not supported by any gospel text whatsoever, but strictly derived the commentary of church fathers. I very much wonder if Waultier has not mistaken commentary on known Marcionite doctrinal teaching, something Marcionite teachers would use in their hermeneutic explanation of scripture, for the text itself. This makes me question the methodology for such choices, or at the very least piques my curiosity to know what his arguments were for such choices. I certainly want to see his commentary on each choice he made to give a fair critique.

In the main I'm glad to see this. But I want the commentary too.
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mlinssen
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by mlinssen »

Is not that hard to make a reconstruction of Marcion. Just take the one by Klinghardt and remove every Roman element, every Judaic element, every attempt to fixate it in time or biotope

The Tiberius scene? Rubbish.
The Legion demon? Haven't you noticed that that exact word is a Roman misspelling in the Greek? Check your NA28
And so on. Naturally, the Church Fathers abused the opportunity to pretend that Marcion corroborated some of their lies - and that was their main goal, apart from spreading disinformation and making fun of Marcion

Indeed Stuart, we'll never tell about Marcion unless we find a text. It will sit out there in the sands for sure, but who knows for how long.
Yet does it matter? How, why?
Or is it just a fun puzzle?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by neilgodfrey »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 2:03 pm
rgprice wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 8:50 am Would be interesting to know more about his approach. It looks like he's got several sections that he doesn't cite a source for. Is theer a book that explains this more?
Here is the background that I read and that led me to the reconstruction .... it was posted by Mr MacSon at viewtopic.php?p=129171#p129171

Here is a machine translation of that article:


THE MARCIONITE EVANGELION.docx
Wautier's approach is not mine, but I thought it might be interesting to some to see what he has done alongside the sources for each point he has listed.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by MrMacSon »

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:08 pm I have translated Wautier's reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel. Attached here for anyone interested : Wautier - Reconstruction.pdf
The start compared to Klinghardt's reconstruction in English (in Klinghardt's 2018 monograph, The Oldest Gospel, Quiet Waters Publications)

Wautier
Klinghard
The fifteen year of Tiberius' principate .....................In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Christ descended from Heaven, appeared in Capernaum [Jesus] went down to Capharnaum, a city in Galilee [at the sea in the territory of Zebulon and Naphtali]
Having taken on the appearance of a man,
he appeared 30 years old
[it'd be interesting to know if that means, 'he appeared at 30 yrs of age',
or, 'he appeared to be 30 yrs of age']
Cain and those who were with him ran to him, the sodomites, the Egyptian & others, all others, all those who had been guilty of indignities, Christ saved them
a.a.a.a.a.a..........................................And he taught them on the Sabbath days.
All were struck by his teaching ~ because his Word had powerAnd all were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority.

but a demon called out to him
And in the synagogue was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out in a loud voice
'What have you to do with us, Jesus? You have come to lose us. 'I know who you are, the Holy One of God' 'What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazara? Have you come to destroy us? 'I know who you are, the Holy One of God'
Christ rebuked him: "Get behind me, Satan"Jesus rebuked him: "Be silent and come out of him"
And the demon threw him into the center and came out of him screaming, but he did not hurt him. And great fright came over them all, and they spoke among themselves, saying, “What kind of speech is this? For the authority and the power he commands the unclean spirits so that they come out” And the report about him spread to every place in the region
Ascended to Bethsaida.
Christ did not preach anything new there
But when he came to Nazara, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. and they said, 'Is not this Joseph's son?'
Then people opposed him [with] the saying ...And he said to them, "Now you will indubitably quote this proverb to me.
'Physician, heal thyself''Physician, heal thyself!' "
However demons came out of the sick on whom he laid his hands shouting, 'You are the Son of God.''Everything that we have heard happen[ed] in Capharnaum, do also here in your hometown!'
But they were rebuked and ordered to be silent.but He said, "Truly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his homeotown."
Then all the synagogue was filled with anger
Christ went to the desert and was held back by the crowd and they got up and thrust Him out of the city, and they led Him to the slope of the mountain on which their city was built to hurl him down.
But passing through them, he escapedBut he passed right through their midst and went away
He said, "I must preach the kingdom of God to other towns in the kingdom of God"
And he left Nazara and went and lived in Capharnaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulon and Naphtali.
Near a lake, he called fishermen
He led them into deep water and they made a prodigious catch
Then he said to Simon, who had fallen to his knees
"Do not be afraid. From now on you will take men."
As the sun was setting, everyone brought the sick people with various ailments to him, as many as they had.
But on each of them He laid the hands and healed them.
Christ then heals a leper with a word.
He bowed down but Christ commanded him
"Go show yourself to the priest and make the offering that Moses prescribed, so that this may serve as a testimony"
He also healed a paralytic
"Get up, He said to him, "and take your mat with you"
But demons came out of many
They cried out, 'You are the Son of God'
and He berated them and did not let them speak.

For they knew that he was the Christ
.
the disciples of Christ were compared to those of John, who fasted and prayed
And He said,

"the physician is needed not by the healthy but by the sick.

"One does not sew a piece of new clothing to any old one.

"Neither do we put new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the skins will break and the wine is spilled. But new wine is put in new skins, and both are preserved."
.
But when day came, he left and went to a secluded place. And the crowd was looking for Him, and they firmly held onto Him so that he would not depart from them.
But he said to them,
"It is necessary that I proclaim the kingdom of God also in the other cities,
for that is why I am sent."
And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee
One Sabath day, Christ having healed a man whose hand had withered, the Pharisees took offence.
Christ asked them,
"Is it permitted, yes or no, on the Sabbath day to do good or to save souls?"
But it happened that the crowd pressed up on him and heard the Word of God
And when he was standing at Lake Gennesaret, he was two boats lying by the lake. The fishermen had gotten out of them and washed their nets.
He entered into one of the boats that belonged to Simon and asked him to put out a little from the short. He sat down in the boat and taught the crowds.
One evening Christ went up a mountain
and he spend the night in prayer, which his Father heard
Then he elected twelve of his disciples
and changed the name of Simon to Peter
Going down with them, he met a crowd on the shores of Tyre and other cities, even from the seas, and everyone in that crowd tried to touch him.
Then Christ looked at them and said,

"Blessed are you the beggars, for the kingdom of God is yours,
"Blessed are the hungry, for they shall be filled.
"Blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh.
"Blessed will you be when men hate you, insult you, and curse your name, because they are guilty,

"because of the Son of Man.

"For this is how your fathers treated the prophets.

"But woe to you, the rich, for you have already received your consolation.

"Woe to you who are full, for you will be hungry;

"To you who laugh, for you will weep.

"Woe to you when men praise you,
for their fathers did the same to the false prophets.

and I say to you who hear me, love your enemies, bless those who hate you and pray for those who slander you.

"Do not ask an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
but when they hit you on the cheek, turn the other cheek,

"And if your coat is taken from you, offer your robe also.

[etc] ..."
.

We need a Marcion Seminar
Stuart
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by Stuart »

MrMacSon wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 3:14 pm
We need a Marcion Seminar
We need the equivalent of a UBS committee to develop a critical text, if that's possible. :scratch:
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Jagd
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by Jagd »

Wow, that Wautier version is remarkably different from the Klinghardt and excitingly eclectic and disharmonious in comparison to the synoptics. The creator vs. good god element is certainly provocative.
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by Giuseppe »

Wautier thinks that the earliest Gospel was written by Cerdon and it had as incipit the descent in Sheol, then misunderstood as "Capernaum".

This Earliest Gospel ended with the Transfiguration episode, where Jesus completed his ascension to heaven of the highest god.

The Transfiguration itself was cryptically meant as the original crucifixion of glory. Again, the influence of Georges Ory on Wautier's view is evident: Jesus never existed in the Paul's epistles because the original crucifixion of which Paul talks is a crucifixion of glory. Which means: it is never conceived as an embarrassing event. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 that the gentiles and/or Jews are scandalized by a such cross, the reason is that they think that it was a mere earthly Roman crucifixion, when really it was a cosmic glorious event happened in outer space. The passage in Galatians where Paul quotes Deuteronomy is interpolated.
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by Giuseppe »

Stuart wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 2:10 pm I very much wonder if Waultier has not mistaken commentary on known Marcionite doctrinal teaching, something Marcionite teachers would use in their hermeneutic explanation of scripture, for the text itself.
Why? If we have Irenaeus who accused Marcion about his Christ saving the Genesiac Serpent, the sodomites, etc, then why do you ignore it as mere marcionite commentary and not rather as an item found in the Marcion's Evangelion?

Even more so when we have Heracleon who points out the allegorical meaning of 'Capernaum' as the Sheol, hence we can do easily 2 + 2 and infer that the descent ad inferos was found in the incipit itself of Marcion's Gospel.

Otherwise, why a heresiarch would emphasize so much the mention precisely of 'Capernaum' in the beginning itself of the Gospel ?
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Re: Evangelion of Marcion (as reconstructed by Wautier)

Post by Stuart »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 12:43 am
Stuart wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 2:10 pm I very much wonder if Waultier has not mistaken commentary on known Marcionite doctrinal teaching, something Marcionite teachers would use in their hermeneutic explanation of scripture, for the text itself.
Why? If we have Irenaeus who accused Marcion about his Christ saving the Genesiac Serpent, the sodomites, etc, then why do you ignore it as mere marcionite commentary and not rather as an item found in the Marcion's Evangelion?

Even more so when we have Heracleon who points out the allegorical meaning of 'Capernaum' as the Sheol, hence we can do easily 2 + 2 and infer that the descent ad inferos was found in the incipit itself of Marcion's Gospel.

Otherwise, why a heresiarch would emphasize so much the mention precisely of 'Capernaum' in the beginning itself of the Gospel ?
You make my point. Those are the teachings, the interpretation of the scripture. But they are not in the text, there is no evidence from our textual witnesses of any such elements in the gospel.

And if they were added, which I doubt as such interpretation would be easily handled by teaching, it would have been after the Marcionites separated. Meaning it would not have been in the original text.

Giuseppe, you are so engrossed in understanding the teachings of the heretics that you ignore the textual evidence and confuse, as I suspect Waultier has, the teachings with the text. They are different things.
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