Troy Konicki: The case for Marcion's gospel == Q

[Giuseppe]

Like Klinghardt, I argue that the originality of Marcion provides answers for many of the issues in the synoptic problem, but unlike Klinghardt, I see Marcion as the actual embodiment of the hypothetical Q document. Marcion’s gospel = Q. Looked at this way, Q theory has argued for Marcion all along; a sayings source that bears the same relative order as Luke, focuses on the divinity of Jesus, supports a Gentile-friendly Christianity, and takes a Cynic perspective on moral living while maintaining an awareness and foreboding about the importance of the apocalyptic age to come.

https://ncf.sobek.ufl.edu/content/NC/FE ... i,%20T.pdf

This has been the same view held in past by Mead.

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

So Konicki:

Thus, it would be more accurate to call Q a gospel that focuses on sayings material and contains less overall narrative frame than the others, rather than continue to hold to the hypothetical nature of a “sayings source.”

This Q == Mcn idea assumes that the gospel is not jewish:

I do not want to misrepresent Kloppenborg’s point, since he argues purely from a location perspective, that “Q presents us with a rural, Galilean Jewish gospel…” Thus, I am not refuting his analysis, but rather expanding upon it to question the actual nature of Q’s supposed Jewish character.

Curiously, also Earl Doherty argued for Q being not very Jewish in its original layer (Q1):

Could it be that the bedrock layer of the Q material is not Jewish at all, but arises from a more cosmopolitan source, adopted and to some extent adapted, by a Jewish or mixed community whose real character can be seen in Q2?

(Jesus, Neither God Nor Man, p. 328, my bold)


Konicki sees how the Kloppenborg and Burton Mack's conclusions about the anti-Jewish antagonism in Q are better explained as Marcion's dualism anti-YHWH:

Thus, the two gospels, Q and Marcion, both share a specifically Gentile-friendly character. Kloppenborg and Mack both have explanations for the phenomenon of a seemingly anti-Jewish Christ in Q. Mack argues that this represents “Q2,” the portions of Q that came out of its community’s rejection and discrimination. He says, “the apocalyptic imagination served only one purpose for the people of Q, and that was to guarantee the threat of judgment that they wanted to bring down upon people who had frustrated their mission.”127 In other words, the Q community experienced antagonism and retaliated by positioning Jesus as against their opponents. This is one possibility. The other, as proposed by Kloppenborg, is that Q was written to follow Deuteronomistic theology.128 Following his notion of Q as a Jewish gospel, he argues that Q was written to look like a prophetic Jewish text with its cycle of prophetic proclamation, peoples’ rejection, and divine punishment. Thus, the first theory argues that the Q community went through a series of changes and recorded them all as a gospel and the second that the community wanted to connect itself literarily with the prophetic genre of its Jewish opponents. Both imply a dualism that takes quite a stretch to accept in a fledgling, ascetic community of the first century.
Again, Marcion seems to make perfect sense of this dualism, especially when the material is filled in and shown to be nearly 4 times the length of Q. Marcion argues for the existence of two gods, one that creates and one that redeems the souls of those subjected to creation. That being said, Marcion’s Jesus should be expected to love and teach the Jewish people while hating their practices and rituals directed towards the Creator. Further, Marcion’s theology lends itself to a particularly apocalyptic nature as Jesus’ sole message is redemption of the spiritual and the coming destruction of the material. The Unknown God has sent Jesus to usher in the Kingdom, a new mentality, a new hope and to proclaim the ultimate defeat of the Creator god and its creation. In addition to the Marcionite Christ’s specific rejection of ties to Judaism (20.41-44), he further aims to introduce the hidden message of the Unknown God, “like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened,”129 to do away with the Creator.

Not only that. Think about all the sociological readings of Q as a counter-cultural movement, etc.
Well, I have always distrusted sociologists, and now I have the definitive confirmation of this. It's all theology, folks!

Marcion, with his devaluation of the material would, clearly affirms all of these attributes. Marcion, like Q, has countless discourses on the invalidity of the material, whether it be family, social status, or wealth (9.38-42/9.57-62/12.4-5/12.29-34/12.51- 53/14.26-33/16.13/17.33). Unlike Q, however, these discourses are readily explained by the inherent evil of the physical world. Marcion’s Jesus even denies his own mother138 and says, in another place, “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.”139 Marcion’s Jesus wants no association with the material and, thus, admonishes his followers to leave everything, abandon all wealth and family, shed the oppressive effects of the material world. Once again, this fits directly with Marcion’s specific theology

So now I realize why a case can be built that Marcion preceded even Mark: aren't we said again and again that Q itself preceded Mark ?

[Giuseppe]

A challenge for Kunigunde:

In Q John the Baptist is not introduced. He is mentioned without introduction at all.

Just as in Marcion.

Why then does the absence of an introduction about John the Baptist support Markan priority over Marcion but not the Markan priority over Q ?

Contradiction.

[schillingklaus]

The dualism left in the gospels down to editorial fatigue is much older than Marcion's watered version of it; it belongs to pre-Christian gnosticism off which Christianity developped by successive Judaization and Euhemerization.