Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

You waste everyone's time with your assertion based drivel. What does any of this have to do with the Jewish War other than you Joe Atwill are a published author of such a thesis? Go away or use your own fucking name. At least then you'd have some shame when we all know who is actually polluting the forum with this garbage

Go away or use your own fucking name

Who is saying that? Answer: Secret Alias (do what you ask from other!)

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard Muller wrote:Someone can go through a crowd and still have a physical body, as long that each person in front of that someone goes aside in order to clear the way. I do not think "Luke", or Marcion, or the hypothetical author of the hypothetical proto-Lukan gospel, imagined Jesus temporarily turned into a ghost in order to go through a crowd in Nazareth.
About flying, I do not know where you got that.

Charles Wilson wrote:Before you go "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", at least look to see if there is another explanation.

Bernard-
In case the last sentence came across as too harsh, know that I realize that your explanation is not "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".
In fact, I'll add to what you state: It's easy to walk through the crowd if you focus on your feet. Everyone in a crowd is focused on what their eyes see. If you focus on placing your feet in a "space" where no one's foot is, people will automatically move if you are not too pushy about it. Apologetix is not too good for this NT Passage. I offer the Josephus quote as a possibility for study. It is certainly possible for "Jesus" to walk through a crowd as you point out. Try it for yourself sometime and see.

Best,

CW

andrewcriddle wrote:This is a possible argument for the priority of the Gospel of Luke over Marcion's Gospel.

1) According to Tertullian, Epiphanius, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Adamantius and Pseudo-Ephrem the beginning of the Gospel of Marcion is

Ben C. Smith wrote:Luke 3.1-38, John the baptist, the preaching and imprisonment of John, the baptism and genealogy of Jesus.

1 Ἐν τῷ ἔτει δὲ πεντεκαιδεκάτῳ τῆς ἡγεμονίας Τιβερίου Καίσαρος, ἡγεμονεύοντος Ποντίου Πειλάτου [Marcion: ἐπι τῶν χρόνων Ποντίου Πιλάτου] τῆς Ἰουδαίας, καὶ τετρααρχοῦντος τῆς Γαλιλαίας Ἡρῴδου, Φιλίππου δὲ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ τετρααρχοῦντος τῆς Ἰτουραίας καὶ Τραχωνίτιδος χώρας, καὶ Λυσανίου τῆς Ἀβιληνῆς τετρααρχοῦντος,

1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor [Marcion: in the times of Pontius Pilate] of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,

It seems to me this is an argument for the priority of canonical Luke over Marcion, but the argument is not very strong.


2) Once our own toejam made very strong arguments for Luke 1 & 2 not being original. But my impression is that one of his arguments is not valid.

toejam wrote:Hints at an alternative beginning. Chapter 3 reads like the beginning of a bios-history / gospel: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea... " etc., and is shortly followed by Jesus's baptism and genealogy, etc. It seems an odd place to place Jesus's genealogy, at the point of his adult baptism instead of his conception or birth where genealogies would normally be placed (see Matthew, Josephus's autobiography, etc.). This can be explained if Chapter 3 was originally the beginning of a Proto-Gospel.

The reason is simple. I think there are not two "beginnings”, but three "time markers”.

Dates of Jewish history	1:5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah.
Dates of world history	2:1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
Dates of world history and Jewish history	3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,

A carefully constructed composition by Luke. But Marcion’s gospel seems to be not interested in historical time markers.

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote:

andrewcriddle wrote:This is a possible argument for the priority of the Gospel of Luke over Marcion's Gospel.

1) According to Tertullian, Epiphanius, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Adamantius and Pseudo-Ephrem the beginning of the Gospel of Marcion is

Ben C. Smith wrote:Luke 3.1-38, John the baptist, the preaching and imprisonment of John, the baptism and genealogy of Jesus.

1 Ἐν τῷ ἔτει δὲ πεντεκαιδεκάτῳ τῆς ἡγεμονίας Τιβερίου Καίσαρος, ἡγεμονεύοντος Ποντίου Πειλάτου [Marcion: ἐπι τῶν χρόνων Ποντίου Πιλάτου] τῆς Ἰουδαίας, καὶ τετρααρχοῦντος τῆς Γαλιλαίας Ἡρῴδου, Φιλίππου δὲ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ τετρααρχοῦντος τῆς Ἰτουραίας καὶ Τραχωνίτιδος χώρας, καὶ Λυσανίου τῆς Ἀβιληνῆς τετρααρχοῦντος,

1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor [Marcion: in the times of Pontius Pilate] of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,

It seems to me this is an argument for the priority of canonical Luke over Marcion, but the argument is not very strong.

I'm not sure whether that has been mentioned already in this thread, but there's also this post by Stephan Huller from a different thread on this board:

Clement of Alexandria summarizes a variant version of Luke with:

it is written in the Gospel by Luke as follows: “And in the fifteenth of Tyb the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zacharias.” And again in the same book: “And Jesus was coming to His baptism, being about thirty years old,” and so on. And that it was necessary for Him to preach only a year, this also is written: “He has sent Me to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord .”

it was Mead who pointed out an extremely important section of Clement of Alexandria's Stromata that I had missed because I was working from the English translation (you too apparently):

"They of Basilides," says Clement, "celebrate His Baptism by a preliminary night-service of readings; and they say that 'the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar' means the fifteenth day of the month Tybi." ... In "the fifteenth [year] of Tib[erius]" we have, then, perhaps an interesting glimpse into the workshop of the "historicizers." [Fragments of a Faith Forgotten p. 278]

Mead's point is that the Basilideans aren't simply saying that the baptism occurred on the 15th of Tybi but that this reading replaces the familiar 'fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar' in Luke [...] Mead isn't alone in his interpretation of the material this way. Henry Wace and William Coleman Piercy in their Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century (hardly a theosophical handbook) break it down as follows:

They of Basilides (οἱ ἀπὸ Β.) celebrate the day of His Baptism by a preliminary night-service of [Scripture] readings (προδιανυκτερεύοντες ἀναγνώσεσι); and they say that the 'fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar' (Luk_3:1) is (or means) the fifteenth day of the [Egyptian] month Tybi while some [make the day] the eleventh of the same month.

or the whole passage:

Οἱ δὲ ἀπὸ Βασιλείδου καὶ τοῦ βαπτίσματος αὐτοῦ τὴν ἡμέραν ἑορτάζουσι προδιανυκτερεύοντες <ἐν> ἀναγνώσεσι. φασὶ δὲ εἶναι τὸ πεντεκαιδέκατον ἔτος Τιβερίου Καίσαρος τὴν πεντεκαιδεκάτην τοῦ Τυβὶ μηνός, τινὲς δὲ αὖ τὴν ἑνδεκάτην τοῦ αὐτοῦ μηνός. τό τε πάθος αὐτοῦ ἀκριβολογούμενοι φέρουσιν οἳ μέν τινες τῷ ἑκκαιδεκάτω ἔτει Τιβερίου Καίσαρος Φαμενὼθ κεʹ, οἳ δὲ Φαρμουθὶ κε [1.21.146.1 - 3]

And here is the contentious sentence:

φασὶ δὲ εἶναι τὸ πεντεκαιδέκατον ἔτος Τιβερίου Καίσαρος τὴν πεντεκαιδεκάτην τοῦ Τυβὶ μηνός, τινὲς δὲ αὖ τὴν ἑνδεκάτην τοῦ αὐτοῦ μηνός
they say that the 'fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar' the fifteenth day of the month Tybi while some the eleventh of the same month

Mead's point I suppose (a point which was probably taken from Wace and Piercy) Clement is reporting that the Basilideans argued for 'the fifteenth of Tubi' as the reading in the gospel instead of 'the fifteenth of Tiberius Caesar' or that the reading in Clement has been amended.

Why is this significant? Because 15 Tybi = 15 Nisan.

This is one point that may throw a different light on the whole passage, with the usual questions of what came first and who changed what.

Ulan wrote:I'm not sure whether that has been mentioned already in this thread, but there's also this post by Stephan Huller from a different thread on this board:

Clement of Alexandria summarizes a variant version of Luke with:

it is written in the Gospel by Luke as follows: “And in the fifteenth of Tyb the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zacharias.” And again in the same book: “And Jesus was coming to His baptism, being about thirty years old,” and so on. And that it was necessary for Him to preach only a year, this also is written: “He has sent Me to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord .”

Very interesting. Where is this written?

Ulan wrote:post by Stephan Huller:

And here is the contentious sentence:

φασὶ δὲ εἶναι τὸ πεντεκαιδέκατον ἔτος Τιβερίου Καίσαρος τὴν πεντεκαιδεκάτην τοῦ Τυβὶ μηνός, τινὲς δὲ αὖ τὴν ἑνδεκάτην τοῦ αὐτοῦ μηνός
they say that the 'fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar' the fifteenth day of the month Tybi while some the eleventh of the same month

Mead's point I suppose (a point which was probably taken from Wace and Piercy) Clement is reporting that the Basilideans argued for 'the fifteenth of Tubi' as the reading in the gospel instead of 'the fifteenth of Tiberius Caesar' or that the reading in Clement has been amended.

The usual translation is

Ulan wrote:This is one point that may throw a different light on the whole passage, with the usual questions of what came first and who changed what.

Mmh

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote:

Ulan wrote:I'm not sure whether that has been mentioned already in this thread, but there's also this post by Stephan Huller from a different thread on this board:

Clement of Alexandria summarizes a variant version of Luke with:

it is written in the Gospel by Luke as follows: “And in the fifteenth of Tyb the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zacharias.” And again in the same book: “And Jesus was coming to His baptism, being about thirty years old,” and so on. And that it was necessary for Him to preach only a year, this also is written: “He has sent Me to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord .”

Very interesting. Where is this written?

The passage is from Miscellanies 1.21 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm), but the online copies have "year of Tiberius", not "of Tyb" or "of Tubi", for the actual quote from Luke. The TLG has:


I have no variants available to me at this time. Mead's comments can be found here: http://gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/frag ... /fff40.htm. More information here (from Andrew Criddle): http://hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2014/08/ ... phany.html.

Ulan wrote:post by Stephan Huller:

Clement of Alexandria summarizes a variant version of Luke with:

it is written in the Gospel by Luke as follows: “And in the fifteenth of Tyb the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zacharias.”

Ben C. Smith wrote:The passage is from Miscellanies 1.21 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm), but the online copies have "year of Tiberius", not "of Tyb" or "of Tubi", for the actual quote from Luke. ...
I have no variants available to me at this time. Mead's comments can be found here: http://gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/frag ... /fff40.htm. More information here (from Andrew Criddle): http://hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2014/08/ ... phany.html.

Thanks a lot. I surmise that this "variant version of Luke" exists only in the "post by Stephan Huller", advocated by Ulan.

I think the issue should have been settled by Knox in the 1940s. And to illustrate lets do a little exrecise:

The Gospel of Luke has 19,482 Greek words in it (we can quibble over 200 or 300 words, but no matter). The Marcionite Gospel was at least 1/3rd fewer words, so lets say for the sake of argument 6,500 fewer. The texts we have were all scriptio continua, and hand written. So it's much more difficult than today with word editors to pluck out individual words.

This last point is critical when looking at word studies of the attested Marcionite text against the Catholic text. Now this is where Knox's idea of studying the vocabulary differences comes in. (Note: I have his list of words, but I am not certain if I would violate copy right to publish them here, even though 1942 might be OK; I will email a link to the pdf I have on google drive, but only with view permission, on a case by case basis --- the book should be available through your local library network). Knox's study was flawed in that he simply worked at verse level. If a portion of a verse was attested he included the entire verse. But like WNI examples, sometimes phrases and single words are missing.

So lets imagine taking a book of 19,500 words and removing 6,500 of those words, to cut the book down and remove the points you object to. You can try that on any book you want. What you will find is the patterns of the original writer, and their word preferences will still be there, albeit perhaps in different ratios than before. You will leave traces of their favorite words and phrases, especially where there is no point of contention in a paragraph. Scriptio continua makes it highly likely you will leave such a section alone, unless its really critical to your argument.

So what kind of words make the best indicators? Well in the case of Luke (or Paul) it will be words not loaded with theological meaning. For me the two words which sealed the deal are the flavor word τε and the Lucan word for immediately παραχρῆμα. There would be no reason for any Marcionite scribe to remove them, and yet they are missing completely from the attested text in Marcion (that includes Paul). There are other unloaded words missing. It would take a unique editor in NT days with a pet peeve against these and certain other words to systematically remove all of them even from sections of text you don't object to. That defies credulity.

On the other hand if you are a later writer and take the work of somebody else and make it your own, say a work of 13,000 words and expand it to 19,500, both with completely new material and adjustments to specific elements that don't work with your presentation - again scriptio continua means it has to be significant for me to adjust blocks I have only minor quibble with - your mark will be left all over the text. Your favorite words will show up, your phraseology will appear in the new and some changed sections. This is what we see in Luke compared to Marcion.

The vocabulary argument is the one which destroys the Luke priority argument. It is the one without an answer.

Most experts date the composition of the combined work to around 80-90 AD, although some suggest 90-110,

Until a later dating for Luke is accepted as a possibility, the Marcionite controversy will gain little to no traction as a remote possibility.

For me what it comes down to is the fact a Gnostic philosopher would be more likely to redact Luke, then plagiarize the text known as Mark and Q traditions.

One of two things took place, either Marcion plagiarized Mark and Q or someone else did.

With all the battle of heretics here, I don't see the more orthodox using a heretics theology as a foundation to build from. It doesn't make sense.