Marcion: "thy country"

[Ben C. Smith]

My apologies. I had thought you were more firmly on the Historicist side than you ever were.

No problem, Adam. You have probably seen me discuss and debate in "historicist mode" before, possibly more than you've seen me discuss and debate in "mythicist mode". But most of the time I am in neither "mode"; most of the time I am just sifting textual debris. Textual criticism and then source criticism have to come first, I believe.

[gmx]

Does that mean Marcion referred to Nazareth as Jesus' homeland? Is that surprising? I mean, if he descended from heaven into Capernaum, how could Nazareth be his homeland?

That Nazareth passage makes little sense coming as it does before the events in Capernaum -- given that it refers to those events as if they are already past. There is a line of scholarly tradition that argues this Nazareth passage has been relocated or interpolated into an earlier version of Luke or into Marcion's version of Luke.

“Discovering” an original gospel behind canonical Luke and the gospel of Marcion

That is my own working hypothesis: both Luke and Marcion reworked a proto-gospel.

No disrespect intended, but I think that stretches credulity a little. Marcion decides to write a gospel, and Luke decides to write an anti-Marcionite gospel, and they both decide to use the same hypothetical proto-gospel as their primary source. The only way that sounds plausible to me is if "Luke" wrote with the intention of using the writing to claim that Marcion had mutilated "his" gospel.

[Ben C. Smith]

That is my own working hypothesis: both Luke and Marcion reworked a proto-gospel.

No disrespect intended, but I think that stretches credulity a little. Marcion decides to write a gospel, and Luke decides to write an anti-Marcionite gospel, and they both decide to use the same hypothetical proto-gospel as their primary source. The only way that sounds plausible to me is if "Luke" wrote with the intention of using the writing to claim that Marcion had mutilated "his" gospel.

Problem: "I think that stretches credulity a little."
Solution: "The only way that sounds plausible to me is if Luke wrote with the intention of using the writing to claim that Marcion had mutilated his gospel."

You solved your own problem. Good job.

(There are actually other solutions. But if you have one you like, why not explore it?)

Ben.