Two facts seem to defend Marcion, at any case:Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:33 am It just seems like there is this strange and illogical bias where Christendom is concerned. Heretics are saints, mainstream Christians are these conniving conspiracists who are out to fool the whole world.
1) he didn't edit Luke, as an increasing consensus agrees.
2) for me it is really hard to believe that Marcion read 'born by woman' and removed it: a such action would be equivalent to believe that Marcion found in Paul the more radical "NO" of all the times to his entire theology. And this NO he didn't find in the gospels, about which we are said that he realized that someone had interpolated them. He found a such NO just in his loved Paul. Too much divine coincidence: isn't it?
This divine coincidence says us also that, while we have Marcion's accusation against the Judaizers having corrupted the Gospels, we don't have analogous claims by Marcion about the epistles having been corrupted by the catholics: someway, he didn't live enough to see the Catholics corrupt the epistles, also.
Really, if I remember well, 'heretics' accusing catholics of having corrupted the epistles were really not the marcionites, but the Paulicians.
as above: there is no evidence of Marcion accusing the catholics of interpolating the epistles, which would have given him a valid reason to 'purify' them from Catholic interpolations. Whereas we have good evidence of Marcion accusing the Judaizers of judaizing the Evangelion and only the Evangelion.Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:33 am Doesn't mean that Marcion did not do so, just means that maybe Irenaeus was less attentive to Paul's letters than to the Gospel of Luke.
Really, the fact that Paul enters in the historical record the first time with Marcion, is a powerful argument for Paul being totally invented by Marcion, contra his being 'corrected' or interpolated. Something as: this is Paul, totally pure (since it is a recent my fabrication).
the fact that Paul himself visited the third heaven (with the body or without the body, he didn't know, god knew) is not evidence that Paul was not "a living, breathing, human".Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:33 amit tells us they probably thought he was a living, breathing, human being on earth.