Short list of arguments that are going to persuade Giuseppe that Marcion precedes Mark

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

This passage from Dialogue Adamantius should answer your question:

Part 1, section 8:

Megethius (Marcionite champion): I will prove that the Gospel is one.

Adamantius (Catholic champion): Who is the writer of this Gospel which you said is one?

Interesting. It sounds like there can only be one gospel. The argument here is probably Galatians 1:6ff. Megethius probably equates Paul's message with the written literary genre. Just as Irenaeus proved that there must be four gospels, so Megethius seems to be saying: There can be only one!

[Secret Alias]

es ist eine Tradition und kein "Argument“. nicht dasselbe.

[Giuseppe]

Argument from Mark's addition of the drowning of 'Legion' in the lake

• Only in this case, André Wautier, and not Klinghardt, gives the best reconstruction of the Evangelion:
  
  
  One day Christ asked a leader of demons, "What is your name?" who answered him: "Legion" and begged him not to order him to go away in the abyss. Christ consented.
  
  

• Mark 5:13 added:
  
  And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.
  
  This is expected by a vendicative god, but not all by the "Good God" of Marcion, able only of love, even for the demons.

[Secret Alias]

You realize the more you make these sorts of arguments the more you sound like Irenaeus. As if there was only one "Jewish god." And if you think Jesus was "in disguise" while on earth it was his Father who was the "good Good." Look at Mark chapter 10. "no one is good except God." As such Jesus is Yahweh, the man of war, so the Marcionites in Ephrem.

[Giuseppe]

Argument from Mark placing the list of the commandments on the mouth of Jesus himself and not on the mouth of the young rich as in *Ev

• In *Ev 18:18-23 it is the young rich who, under the false belief that Jesus means YHWH as the 'Good' Father, talks immediately about his respect of the commandments emanated by YHWH via Moses:
  
  
  Someone asked him, saying, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" But he replied, "Do not call me good, (Only) one is good, the Father. But he said, "I know the commandments [...] " But when Jesus heard this, he said to him "You lack one thing: Sell all that you own, [...] then come and follow me". But when he heard this, he became sad because he was very rich.
  
  By adding that further, impossible imperative, Jesus appears clearly contemptuous of the Jewish law.

• Mark feared the Marcionite interpretation of the passage and his solution was to put on the mouth of Jesus himself the mention of the list of the commandments of YHWH, so there is no more doubt, for the readers of Mark, about who is the "Good" Father for Jesus: YHWH and not the Alien God of Marcion.
  
  Mark 10:18-19
  
  “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’
  
  

[Stuart]

I meant you can give the Greek text, and how you translated it to English. Mahar btw is not the translator here, he used some early 20th century translation he found (I forgot which one, it's been some years since I last corresponded with him).

Pretty seems to be mostly a very good translation from the lines I've checked closely. I'm not sure it matters much the exact translation, as the context is pretty clear through the whole passage. And this passage is consistent with Marcionite opinion of Paul. To them the relationship of Christ to Paul and his writings is similar to Muslims opinion of the relationship of Gabriel to Mohhamad with respect to the Quran.

I mentioned the Greek word https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CF%80%CF%81%CE%BF% ... E%BC%CE%B9 and offered a valid translation as "gave" instead of "added." That's it. That's all that's needed to raise the question of whether it's just saying Paul wrote the gospel.

The exact translation is everything (not that we can necessarily say what that is for sure). Whether it's necessarily saying that the composition was a two stage process pivots on a single word.

Ah, I see, rather than wrote it's more like handed down, as we have the compound πρός + τίθημι which could be like "according to" + "placed." Yes, "gave" or "put/brought forth" is probably a better translation.

This does not change at all Paul's role, rather further establishes his role as primary source of tradition, as conduit rather than author, very much like Mohhamad.

[StephenGoranson]

How important is it to persuade G of x or y?

[Secret Alias]

It is of paramount importance. Giuseppe's knowledge of earliest Christianity is second only to Pete at the forum.

[Stuart]

This passage from Dialogue Adamantius should answer your question:

Part 1, section 8:

Megethius (Marcionite champion): I will prove that the Gospel is one.

Adamantius (Catholic champion): Who is the writer of this Gospel which you said is one?

Interesting. It sounds like there can only be one gospel. The argument here is probably Galatians 1:6ff. Megethius probably equates Paul's message with the written literary genre. Just as Irenaeus proved that there must be four gospels, so Megethius seems to be saying: There can be only one!

That is exactly the argument by Megethius. The passage in 1.8 is preceded by a debate in 1.5-7 about the validity of Catholic fourfold gospels. It's fairly obvious the author of DA doctored the order of responses by Megethius in order to give Adamantius a win on the subject, when the source probably had it as indeterminant since they disagreed on source --you get that result if you restore the argument order, with Megethius rejecting Colossians 4:10 and 4:14 references as coming from the Catholic version of Paul and not his (1)-- so moved on to Megethius defending the one gospel.

from DA 1.6

Megethius: The apostle says there is one Gospel, but you people say there are four.
...
Adamantius: We also say there is one Gospel, but four who preached it.

I abbreviated the debate to get to the point, that the Catholic position of Adamantius already displays the essence of scholasticism, harmonizing the conflicting statement of against the reality of four gospels. (This is not unique, all the sects practiced this form of argument, which is why they didn't need to alter texts, but could work with most of the accepted scripture.)

The argument about whether Mark and Luke knew Paul (Adamantius identifies them as two of the seventy-two, while Matthew and John are two of the twelve ... btw, this is the Western Gospel order argument) which IMO ended in the source with Megethius saying, "I do not accept your spurious Apostolikon," which doesn't actually settle anything. Anyway, you can read DA 1.5-7 yourself to see the argument of one versus four gospels.

Note:
(1) ἀσπάζομαι/ἀσπασμός "Greet/Greeting/Salutation" is a word concentrated in the Lukan sections of the Gospel and also in chapters 16 of Romans and 1 Corinthians which are entirely missing in the Marcionite Paul. We also see in Luke 10:4 an admonition by Jesus to evangelizing disciples from saluting/greeting any on the road, reinforced in verses 11:43 and 20:46 showing that such salutes (acknowledgements of status) something not to aspire to (see also Romans 2:11 οὐ γάρ ἐστιν προσωπολημψία τῷ θεῷ for another example of this opposition to formal authority of men). These sorts of passages suggest to me that the Marcionites inherited a view, probably vestigial even for them by the late 2nd century, reflected in their texts, of earlier Christians who did not recognize any earthy authorities. Only later when church hierarchy was established did deference to position reassert itself as the natural order. But the Marcionite versions of the text appear to predate that, even though the Marcionites had the same hierarchical structure as the main church they split from. It's an argument from vocabulary that verses 4:10, 4:14 were probably not present Marcion. They only appear to have been because the author of DA altered the order of the arguments from his source to give Adamantius an intermediate victory.

[Giuseppe]

Argument from the blind of Bethsaida found in Mark but not in Marcion.

• In both Marcion and Mark there is the episode of the blind Bartimaeus: this blind man before hails Jesus as son of David and only after he is healed by Jesus.
  The meaning in Marcion is that Bartimaeus is a blind man insofar he believes wrongly that Jesus is the davidic Messiah and not the Messiah of an Alien God.

• Mark derived midrashically from the episode of the blind Bartimaeus (found in Marcion) the episode of a different blind man, in Bethsaida: a blind man who before is healed and only after realizes who is Jesus.

• By adding the episode of the blind of Bethsaida, "Mark" (editor) obliges the readers to interpret the episode of the blind Bartimaeus in the opposed way to Marcion: i.e. Bartimaeus says the truth when he hails Jesus as son of David and then, merely as reward, he is healed.