R. G. Mead on Mcn as a pauline collection of sayings

[Giuseppe]

It is not only a my idea the hypothesis that Mcn was without a Passion story.



Also R.G. Mead thought that Mcn was only a pauline collection of sayings:

His Gospel was presumably the collection of Sayings in use among the Pauline churches of his day.

[Giuseppe]

R. G. Mead seems to inclined to think that Pilate was not found in Mcn, since he quotes Esnik about the marcionite Gospel:

And He took compassion on them, and sent them down His Son to deliver them, saying: "Go down, take on Thee the form of a servant [? a body], and make Thyself like the sons of the Law. Heal their wounds, give sight to their blind, bring their dead to life, perform without reward the greatest miracles of healing; then will the God of the Law be jealous and instigate his servants to crucify thee.

This point resembles very closely the Ascension of Isaiah, where also there is no mention at all of Pilate, while the "sons of Israel" are istigated by the "prince of this world" against the Son.

[Giuseppe]

Now, the Ascension of Isaiah is surely anti-marcionite , since it has a birth story to mitigate the strong docetism of the original story.

If the Ascension of Isaiah is anti-marcionite, then it is indirect evidence that Pilate was absent in Marcion.

[Giuseppe]

Why did Marcion emphasize especially the sayings of Jesus?

According to Mead, a such emphasis only on the sayings of Jesus was justified by the need of opposing a new collection of sayings to the diametrically opposed sayings of the Lord YHWH.

Hence we are titled to doubt that Marcion emphasized the dating under Pilate, even if a such dating for Marcion would be partially and implicitly justified by the presence of John the Baptist in his Gospel.

[Giuseppe]

If Doudna is correct about John the Baptist being the Teacher of Righteousness, then it is not at all immediate the implication "the Baptist ---> Pilate".

As I have said elsewhere, Pilate was introduced because a historical killer of the "sons of Joseph" was the best candidate to emphasize (against Marcion) the real suffering of the messiah.

[Giuseppe]

Really, the Doudna's view on John the Baptist as the Teacher of Righteousness is able to explain the Marcionite hostility against John even in a time when the Baptist was not still considered (wrongly) as a contemporary of Pilate (i.e. even when the Baptist passage was not still interpolated in Josephus).

[lsayre]

If Doudna is correct about John the Baptist being the Teacher of Righteousness, then it is not at all immediate the implication "the Baptist ---> Pilate".

As I have said elsewhere, Pilate was introduced because a historical killer of the "sons of Joseph" was the best candidate to emphasize (against Marcion) the real suffering of the messiah.

I thought Gregory Doudna speculates that Hyrcanus II was The Teacher Of Righteousness.