Gospel priority

[dabber]

Hi Guys, as you may know I've recently joined the forum. I'm a bit confused what the general consensus view is on gospel priority.

Please can someone explain as I'm picking up in the midst of heavy conversations.

I'm in the Marcan priority camp (unless any proof otherwise), not really believing there was anything written prior to then. I find Marcan priority compelling.

Does Giuseppe believe in Marcion priority? Is *ev the Evangelicon? But that's a minority view? In simple summary what's that based on?

Do some forum members believe in a written or oral Q, or earlier lost gospel? Thanks

[MrMacSon]

Yep, *Ev is some scholars' shorthand for the Marcionite Evangelion/Euangelion

I think it has to have priority over the canonical Gospel accorded to Luke

I've read a lot of Markus Vinzent's book, Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, and think his argumentation there is good, and his exegesis and understanding of Tertullian in his Tertullian's Prefaces book is excellent.

I've yet to fully read Matthias Klinghardt's big book, The Oldest gospel, and find what I have read to be sound (though some seems a bit contrived)

However, I dunno about the priority of *Ev relative to the Gospel accorded to Mark

I follow Mark Goodacre re Q. I think Q is contrived.

I think G.Mark, G. Matthew and G.Luke as we know them today, ie. in their canonical versions, are likely the result of several episodes of editing and a lot of their editing was likely to have been done with the [various] editors having knowledge of at least one other gospel.

I think G.John is probably early [wrt the synoptic gospels] and probably from a separate mostly Johannine tradition (and the Johannine epistles may mostly have priority)

[Ken Olson]

Hi Guys, as you may know I've recently joined the forum. I'm a bit confused what the general consensus view is on gospel priority.

Please can someone explain as I'm picking up in the midst of heavy conversations.

I'm in the Marcan priority camp (unless any proof otherwise), not really believing there was anything written prior to then. I find Marcan priority compelling.

Does Giuseppe believe in Marcion priority? Is *ev the Evangelicon? But that's a minority view? In simple summary what's that based on?

Do some forum members believe in a written or oral Q, or earlier lost gospel? Thanks

Hi Dabber,

The majority of scholars publishing in the field of New Testament accept the Two Source Theory or Two Document Hypothesis (different names for the same theory, though the second emphasizes that the hypothetical Q was a document), which holds that Matthew and Luke used Mark (i.e., Markan priority) and Q (a lost document hypothesized to explain the major agreements between Matthew and Luke which are not also in Mark).

There are several contributors on the forum who accept Markan priority, including me.

There may be forum members that accept the hypothetical Q document as it is understood by scholars working in the field of New Testament and especially the International Q Project. But I don't recall anyone actually defending the Q hypothesis recently. There have been people who argued for a source other than Mark that preceded Luke and Matthew, and have used the term Q to describe it, but they are not using the term as scholars working in the field use it. They mean simply any non-Markan source source that preceded Matthew and Luke, not necessarily on that could be the source of *all* the major agreements between Matthew and Luke not in Mark.

I favor the Farrer theory, that Luke used Matthew (as Farrer, Goulder, and Goodacre). There is at least one member that favors the alternative Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis (MPH) that holds Matthew used Luke (as Garrow, Huggins, and MacEwen).

There is a large number of contributors on the forum who think Marcion's Evangelion (*Ev in Klinhardt's notation) is earlier than the canonical Gospel of Luke (as BeDuhn and Tyson), and some who think it precedes all the canonical Gospels (as Klinghardt and Vinzent). Giuseppe is among this last group.

Best,

Ken

[Secret Alias]

And then there is the opinion of an idiot at the forum, myself. That the Marcionite gospel was a longer version of Mark (cf. the Philosophumena), that Luke was created to deflect attention away from this reality (i.e. a longer Mark which Marcion was alleged to have shortened to support his philosophical views) and then Irenaeus's original efforts to support this Luke (= Adversus Marcionem) by alleging to tackle "only those parts of Luke which Marcion retained" were codified into Tertullian's third century Latin translation misleading scholars into a false understanding of the shape of the actual Marcionite gospel which was unlike Irenaeus's efforts to distract attention from the Marcionite gospel being a longer version of Mark.

"ur-Matthew" was a late first century expansion of Mark witnessed by Papias and later misrepresented by Irenaeus in his canon as canonical Matthew, Luke is an expansion of Mark witnessed by Irenaeus and misrepresented as the "true Marcionite gospel" in his canon, the Marcionite gospel was an expansion of the Mark known to Papias and likely is the same text as Secret Mark or something like it. The purpose for Irenaeus's systematic falsification of the canon was to erase the implications of Papias's testimony regarding gospel contradictions highlighted in Celsus's work against the Christians in the late second century.

For many generations Marcionites and orthodox attacked one another regarding inter-sectarian "gospel disagreements" reflected in Papias's testimony regarding the agreement between the gospel narrative and the "dominical logoi" which Stephen Carlson has correctly identified as "old testament prophesies" regarding the Christ. "ur-Matthew" seems to have been dissatisfied with Mark's narrative in terms of confirming that Jesus was the awaited messiah of the Jews. Marcionites of course rightly did not believe this was Mark's literary purpose. The first falsification of Mark was intended to "prove" that Jesus was the awaited messiah, the son of David. The second falsification(s) of Mark was/were to make it seem as if "all the witnesses" before Marcion (i.e. canonical Matthew and Luke and even canonical Mark to some degree) agreed that Jesus was the son of David, the Jewish messiah. It was a clever enterprise by Irenaeus pretending or implying also that the canon was, I believe, arranged or codified by the "apostle" John and so his gospel with its chapter headings serves as the "rule" by which "metes out the time" (i.e. the chronology) of the overarching gospel narrative (viz. a many year ministry of Jesus rather than one year).

That's what a fool believes.

[Giuseppe]

Does Giuseppe believe in Marcion priority? Is *ev the Evangelicon? But that's a minority view? In simple summary what's that based on?

I am at the moment again undecided between Mark's priority and *Ev's priority, after that I have seen that Bruno Bauer, a Markan prioritist, has used arguments that have been used independently by *Ev's prioritists to argue that *Ev preceded both Matthew and canonical Luke.

Hence at the moment I am devoted to study again the Bruno Bauer's solution (Mark --> Luke --> Matthew) to see if he can persuade me about Mark preceding also *Ev or not.


A list of arguments used to argue that *Ev precedes Mark:

1) Subtle traces of rivalry between Jesus and John the Baptist survive also in Mark, despite of the fact that in Mark the same god (YHWH) lies behind both Jesus and John the Baptist.

2) Mark makes Jesus a moral monster in rejecting his own family, once the his family is described as existing really.

3) the secrecy about the identity of Jesus is broken by Mark just in correspondence of at least three passages in *Ev where the secrecy runs the risk of being interpreted as meaning that the divine father of Jesus is not YHWH.

4) the Barabbas episode is a pure anti-Marcionite parody.

5) the double healing of the blind of Bethsaida is introduced by Mark to deny that in *Ev the blind Bartimaeus recognizes who is Jesus when he doesn't call him as the davidic Messiah.

6) the parable of wineskins is interpreted probably by Matthew as dangerously marcionite (and corrected accordingly), and the same parable is found in Mark.

7) *Ev would have removed not only the baptism but also other passages from Mark, before that *Ev made Jesus begin his preaching in Capernaum, while the author of *Ev could have limited himself to remove only the baptism from Mark, and not also other passages preceding the first mention of Capernaum in Mark.

[Joseph D. L.]

Hi Guys, as you may know I've recently joined the forum. I'm a bit confused what the general consensus view is on gospel priority.

I think a vocal minority is in the Marcion priority camp. I say vocal minority because there are over 1500 registered members to this forum however there is a contingency of recurring posters who make up a fraction of that total, so it is hard to gauge an accurate consensus.

I don't subscribe to a pure Marcionite priority as from my narrow perch the Marcionite canon represents an expansionist rewrite that took place ca. 160s. I do think that all of the synoptics do not emerge in their current form until after this point, but there were certainly traditions and texts prior to Marcion.

Please can someone explain as I'm picking up in the midst of heavy conversations.

I'm in the Marcan priority camp (unless any proof otherwise), not really believing there was anything written prior to then. I find Marcan priority compelling.

I don't have issues with people finding their own way through this subject. It is honestly a mess. If that is what you find sensible then by all means argue for it.

Does Giuseppe believe in Marcion priority? Is *ev the Evangelicon? But that's a minority view? In simple summary what's that based on?

I'll let Giuseppe speak for himself, but yes *Ev is used as a shorthand for Marcion's text, or maybe an abstract primary Gospel. (Strangely this denotation seems to have only come about on this forum in the last couple of years.)

Do some forum members believe in a written or oral Q, or earlier lost gospel? Thanks

Given Papias's testimony about a Hebrew Logia and an out-of-order Mark, it is either the Gospel of the Hebrews/Ebionites, or Gospel of Peter (yes, I am still arguing Gospel of Peter was Papia's Marcan Gospel.)

[Peter Kirby]

Hi Guys, as you may know I've recently joined the forum. I'm a bit confused what the general consensus view is on gospel priority.

Please can someone explain as I'm picking up in the midst of heavy conversations.

I'm in the Marcan priority camp (unless any proof otherwise), not really believing there was anything written prior to then. I find Marcan priority compelling.

Does Giuseppe believe in Marcion priority? Is *ev the Evangelicon? But that's a minority view? In simple summary what's that based on?

Do some forum members believe in a written or oral Q, or earlier lost gospel? Thanks

I don't yet know the answer, but I am most often looking at the gospel relationships as follows:

Mk -> *Ev
Mk and/or *Ev -> Jn
*Ev and maybe Mk -> Mt

Then finally Luke is aware of all the preceding gospels:

Mk -> Lk
*Ev -> Lk
Mt -> Lk
Jn -> Lk

I am usually comparing this hypothesis against Farrer (and *Ev posteriority) or Klinghardt (and *Ev priority) when it comes to thinking of synoptic problem solutions.

The relative order of Jn and *Ev is a difficult question. Maybe *Ev preceded Jn, maybe vice versa.

[Secret Alias]

FWIW I think 1 Corinthians chapter 2 - 3 is an acknowledgement of two lengths of the gospel at least as far back as Paul. But I am crazy.

[GakuseiDon]

Is *ev the Evangelicon?

Yes, *Ev seems to have become nomina sacra, for some. But we can't be 100% sure that, when written out, it is "Evangelicon". It might be "Evangelikon". Or even "Marcion wrote the first gospel b*tches!"

[dabber]

Thanks for the explanation all. A plethora of viewpoints. We're kind of like the 2nd C apologists, down the rabbit hole, trying to figure it out what happened with detective work. Except unlike them were not calling beach other heretics!
regards, Adam