BeDuhn’s Greek Reconstruction of Marcion’s Gospel

[Peter Kirby]

With very little fanfare, Bilby and BeDuhn have worked together to produce "BeDuhn’s Greek Reconstruction of Marcion’s Gospel." This development can be understood as the third in a sequence of revisions, starting with Roth's thesis (2009), continuing with BeDuhn's book emphasizing imprecision on the Greek text (2013), and proceeding to the work of Mark to encourage Jason to set down his notes on the gospel in Greek (2023).

The development can more or less be traced online (with a couple books not online):

(1) Roth

Towards a New Reconstruction of the Text of Marcion’s Gospel (2009)
https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1 ... sAllowed=y

The Text of Marcion's Gospel (2015)

Normalized Datasets of Roth’s Reconstruction of Marcion’s Gospel (2021) by Mark Bilby
https://openhumanitiesdata.metajnl.com/ ... 34/johd.57

(2) BeDuhn

The First New Testament (2013)

(2.5) Smith "based primarily on the work of Dieter T. Roth and secondarily on the work of Jason BeDuhn"

The Marcionite gospel with accompanying sources. (2015)
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1765

Because BeDuhn did not provide a Greek text, the highlighting here is from Roth.

(3) Bilby-BeDuhn

BeDuhn’s Greek Reconstruction of Marcion’s Gospel (2023) by Mark G. Bilby, Jason D. BeDuhn
https://openhumanitiesdata.metajnl.com/ ... 4/johd.126

This 2023 text, a decade later, reflects updates to BeDuhn's own understanding of the text: "BeDuhn additionally made corrections to the text in several instances where his thinking had changed, indicating these clearly in the apparatus."

Bilby says that BeDuhn has achieved a happy "via media" between more limited reconstructions (he mentions Roth and von Harnack at around 4,000 words) and more expansive (over 10,000 words in Nicolotti, Klinghardt, Hahn, and Zahn). It is said to be "a reasonable, moderate standard that avoids both minimalistic and maximalistic extremes" and a "standard for all future reconstructions and as a solid baseline for quantitative research."

My comment:

My main point of departure from Roth, BeDuhn, and Bilby concerns an essential point mentioned in the title to Roth's thesis: "the Testimony of Tertullian." A common assumption, stated by Roth, is that Tertullian worked by use of Marcion's gospel that was always laid out before him. My understanding of the construction of the fourth book of Against Marcion is very different, and I'm not able to understand every gospel reference in this text as referring simply to Marcion's gospel unless indicated otherwise. The work of re-reading Tertullian and re-evaluating that testimony is something that I started in the thread, "Markan Marcion: A Contrarian Synopsis."

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10810

My view is that Tertullian's value is no greater than that of De Recta in Deum Fide (the Adamantius dialogue) as a witness to the text of *Ev. The dialogue text is typically read as testifying to the disputes between Marcionites and non-Marcionites and as having evolved from a complex mix of prior anti-heretical sources. It's generally acknowledged that the dialogue presents information indirectly on the text of *Ev and that discernment is required for the use of it as evidence.

At the same time, like Bilby, I am optimistic that BeDuhn's more expansive Greek text represents an advance over Roth. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, of course, and working through the particular examples. But I am glad to have an alternative to Roth that likely doesn't fall into the same excesses as other offerings.

Reviewing the text in light of a new understanding of Tertullian's testimony may bring the word count down, but I don't see it as dismal work. It also happily frees the text to be understood better on its own terms, not just in Luke's shadow.

[MrMacSon]

Bilby says that BeDuhn has achieved a happy "via media" between more limited reconstructions (he mentions Roth and von Harnack at around 4,000 words) and more expansive (over 10,000 words in Nicolotti, Klinghardt, Hahn, and Zahn).

I'm not sure that word counts is a standard, but the point still stands.

My understanding of the construction of the fourth book of Against Marcion is very different, and I'm not able to understand every gospel reference in this text as referring simply to Marcion's gospel unless indicated otherwise ..

My view is that Tertullian's value is no greater than that of De Recta in Deum Fide (the Adamantius dialogue) as a witness to the text of *Ev. The dialogue text is typically read as testifying to the disputes between Marcionites and non-Marcionites and as having evolved from a complex mix of prior anti-heretical sources. It's generally acknowledged that the dialogue presents information indirectly on the text of *Ev and that discernment is required for the use of it as evidence.

I think that key here is Markus Vinzent's scholarship as first laid out in his books,

1. Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, 2014; and
2. Tertullian's Preface to Marcion's Gospel, 2016
   

   ... The present monograph [Tertullian's Preface to Marcion's Gospel] first looks at Tertullian's ways of prefacing his works to then move to his preface of his antimarcionite writings, especially Adversus Marcionem, to then give the text, translation and a close reading and interpretation of his introduction to the Antitheses and Marcion's Gospel in the extended preface to book IV of Adversus Marcionem. As a result, the reader will get a better understanding of both Tertullian's literary response to Marcion and Marcion's Antitheses and his Gospel, but also gain glimpses of what, despite all the rhetoric historically, might have provoked Tertullian's response: namely more intellectual proximity between the two interlocutors than the battle on the surface would intimate. https://www.isdistribution.com/BookDeta ... ?aId=67018

   And see
   https://www.academia.edu/39825585/Revie ... 18_293_294; and
   
   https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... F31D89FABE

Understanding what Tertullian was doing has a way to go, eg.,

The papers at the workshop on Tertullian and rhetoric at the most recent Oxford Patristics Conference explore this topic in new and diverse ways and itis my pleasure to be able to respond to them.

David Wilhite considers Tertullian’s indebtedness to Paul in Galatians and, given that Paul’s own indebtedness to classical rhetoric has been demonstrated by scriptural scholars, the ways in which Tertullian was aware of Paul’s rhetorical strategy and the interplay between theology and rhetoric. He argues that Tertullian knew and borrowed Paul’s rhetorical structure and rhetorical devices in Galatians for use in works like De carne Christi and Adversus Marcionem ...

For me the conclusion to be drawn from this contribution is that Tertullian used Galatians not only as source material in the construction of arguments, but employed Paul’s rhetorical strategy in shaping his own in De carne Christi, in a different, though not entirely distinct, context.

Willemien Otten’s offering also has a heavy focus on De carne Christi, atopic on which both of us have both had plenty to say about Tertullian’s rhetoric ... taking an interest in questions of Tertullian’s attitude towards women as a starting point...Otten opens up the issue of Christianity rejecting the radical nature of original Christianity and settling for the influence of Roman culture. Most help-fully she asks the vitally important question of whether his rhetoric drives his theology or his theology drives his rhetoric ...

For Otten classical rhetoric may constrain our ability to see Tertullian’s argument. She considers chapter 23 of De carne Christi to be more than mere peroratio. Interestingly, Evans considers that chapter to be part of an amplificatio that occupies chapters 17 to 23. Sider considers chapters 17 to 22 to be confirmatio and 24 to be peroratio, actually saying nothing about 23. I regard chapter 23 as part of the confirmatio ...

... Frédéric Chapot’s paper...points to Adversus Praxean 5.1, in the discussion about establishing the distinctiveness of the Son from the Father to counter Praxean’s monarchian arguments about the complete identification of Father and Son, where it seems the three stases or issues (the conjectural, the definitional, and the qualitative) are presented as setting forth the unfolding structure of the treatise ...

... I would suggest that structurally Tertullian was making use of the Scripture to construct an argument to persuade his readers that his opponents’ beliefs and use of Scripture were wrong. In other words, the Scriptures are made to serve a rhetorical purpose ... It is true, as Chapot observes, that the idea of the New Testament confirming and succeeding the Old is present throughout this treatise, but again we need to note Tertullian’s technique: he cannot disagree with Isaiah 45:5, John 10:30, and John 14:9-10; the passages produced by his opponents to show the unity of God. However, there are other passages of Scripture, Tertullian argues, that need to be taken into account. That he can produce more passages of Scripture to support his position than they can proves him to be correct, is what he wants his readers to believe in this treatise. This is nothing other than the rhetorical topos of degree, an important tool in invention of arguments, and Tertullian’s comments make very clear his debt to classical rhetoric at this point ... Tertullian’s aim was to overwhelm his reader ...

Thus, Tertullian is not simply shaping his treatise by theological considerations of the relationship between the two testaments of Scripture; he continues to use theological insights derived from the Scriptures in rhetorical arguments to win a debate. As with many of his other works, Tertullian uses Scripture as a witness, and he needs to convince his readers that the evidence that...supports his case, and not his opponents’.

https://www.academia.edu/6376715/Rhetor ... w=39825585

[Peter Kirby]

At the same time, like Bilby, I am optimistic that BeDuhn's more expansive Greek text represents an advance over Roth. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, of course, and working through the particular examples. But I am glad to have an alternative to Roth that likely doesn't fall into the same excesses as other offerings.

According to BeDuhn himself, though, Klinghardt should be understood as offering both a "primary reconstruction" and additional speculation, as he writes in "New Studies of Marcion’s Evangelion" (2017).

Even more seriously, Klinghardt has not adopted the same strict standard found in Roth’s and my own study, of relying only on direct testimony to the presence or absence of text. Instead, the reader finds himself back in Harnack-era speculation of probably present or absent passages based on subjective judgments without evidentiary control. Fortunately, however, he distinguishes this more speculatively-derived part of the reconstruction from that based strictly on the testimony of sources, and it is the latter, printed in bold-type, that must be considered his primary reconstruction, which in fact very closely approximates the reconstructions of Roth and myself. Klinghardt’s extensive assessment of testimony to Evangelion is an important complement to that offered by Roth’s book and my own.

To recover the "primary reconstruction" of Klinghardt, it is necessary to refer directly to his book (i.e. not Bilby's version of it).

So we have access to Roth (2009 / 2015), Klinghardt (2015 / 2020), and BeDuhn (2013 / 2023) for such reconstructions.

[Peter Kirby]

As an alternative to referring to Klinghardt's book, I believe his research is substantially available on his website too, here:

https://marcionbible.tu-dresden.de/marcionvariants.html

(You do have to click through the warnings.)

It isn't his full reconstruction, which is in his book.

[Peter Kirby]

Bilby is clear about what is conflated in his versions of Klinghardt and of Nicolotti:

https://openhumanitiesdata.metajnl.com/ ... 34/johd.70

"Our normalized datasets render in normal font words corresponding to indications 1–3." (both bold and some level of non-bold)

"To normalize this text, we rendered content corresponding to indications 1–3 in normal font." (both bold and some level of non-bold)

These are editorial choices that had to be made, but they are not the only ones that could have been made here.

Possibly controversial points IMO are including "normal font for unattested content most likely in GMarc" (Klinghardt) and "tondo/normal font for certainly or probably present in GMarc in a more or less similar form, whether on the basis of allusions or quotations by ancient authors, necessary for the narrative to make sense, or possibly present in the translator’s opinion, following the text of D" (Nicolotti).

It would seem that Klinghardt and Nicolotti were both capable of producing editions with a lower Greek word count, and if different editorial decisions were made then more comparable principles of reconstruction would be invoked here.

[Peter Kirby]

In an "epilogue," Klinghardt maintains that resolving the relative priority of *Ev and Luke is possible, desirable, and even necessary before embarking on a detailed reconstruction: "These findings, made possible through this framework, serve cumulatively as an argument to confirm the heuristic supposition. Since the heuristic framework of *Ev-priority can be established apart from a detailed reconstruction, this approach is not circular." (p. 414)

Klinghardt proceeds to argue that Roth implicitly assumes that *Ev used Luke:

c. Is a reconstruction without acknowledging the editorial direction even possible?

Let me return to the criticism of Roth’s approach and of his reconstruction. He furnishes quite a detailed reconstruction on the level of individual sentences and words that goes far beyond describing the major differences of the textual evidence. Nevertheless, his reconstruction – contrary to the claim – is anything but indifferent toward the varying provisions regarding the editorial direction. In other words, by carrying out his reconstruction, Roth prejudges the editorial direction, instead of determining it after examining the text evidence. Consistently underlying his reconstruction is the definite assumption of an editorial direction; it is the traditional perspective of Luke-priority. It informs his choices at every turn. Therein lies my principal criticism: Based on the nature of the source evidence, a reconstruction of *Ev is not even possible without first taking into account the editorial direction. Roth’s analysis cannot escape this demand. His reconstruction consistently presumes one editorial direction.

...

For the example mentioned here (*6,23), Roth finds the additional information in the manuscript tradition of canonical Luke. From the limited attestation for the reading ὑμῶν in the Luke manuscripts, he concludes that Epiphanius probably did not find it in the text of Marcion’s Gospel. This example demonstrates the methodological limitations of analyzing citation habits. Even if such personal characteristics influenced the reception of the Bible text, this approach always fails as an instrument for reconstructing *Ev when an attestation either agrees with the majority text or when (as in the example above) it deviates from the majority text but is still supported by parts of the manuscript tradition. In the first case, there is no indication at all that a patristic author may follow his individual preferences when citing inaccurately. In the second case, the agreement with part of the manuscript tradition raises significant doubts of the method because it cannot be determined at which level the deviation must be assumed: Has the patristic author followed his idiosyncratic ‘citation habit’ and reproduced the text inaccurately? or: Does the deviation originate from the text which the author correctly reproduced? That problem cannot be resolved through the citation habit analysis alone.

...

When Roth utilizes this agreement for his textual reconstruction, he presumes not only a close and undeniable relation between *Ev and (the manuscript tradition of canonical) Luke, he also brings them into a genealogical relationship – otherwise this relation would not at all benefit the reconstruction of *Ev. Thereby, he implies an editorial direction: the traditional (and all too obvious) Luke-priority over *Ev.

Roth does not disclose his justification for this approach. He implicitly argues: Since Marcion edited canonical Luke, the Lukan wording probably surfaced also in the (revised) Marcionite Gospel. And whenever there is a textual ambiguity (as in this case, the varia lectio in four manuscripts), then the Lukeexemplar used by Marcion more likely contained a textual form attested by the vast majority of manuscripts rather than the one found in only a few remote witnesses. For Roth the determination of the editorial direction constitutes by no means a second step that can only follow having first established a reconstruction of *Ev. On the contrary, Roth’s decision regarding this fundamental question precedes his reconstruction and influences countless choices.

Such a bias in favor of the Luke-priority can be seen not only in Roth’s treatment of the contradictory attestations but also in the single attestations, which constitute the lion’s share of the heresiological sources. Even then, Roth considerably favors the text of the majority of Luke manuscripts for his reconstruction.

...

Still, why should a textual deviation from canonical Luke that is attested for *Ev be the reason that ‘ultimately no confidence can be placed in these readings’? The unfailingly attested main characteristic of *Ev is indeed the ‘falsification’, the difference to Luke, which the heresiologists uniformly condemned. This argumentative model, on which Roth’s reconstruction is based also in numerous other passages, ascribes a central function to canonical Luke and its manuscript tradition. They represent a major pillar for his reconstruction next to the heresiological sources. The Luke manuscripts, however, can only gain such significance under the premise that the manuscript tradition of canonical Luke had an influence on *Ev, i.e. if the editorial direction explicitly proceeded from Luke to *Ev.

...

Roth draws two conclusions from the ‘Matthean citations’, both of them with the same problematic premise. On the one hand, he considers the agreements between Luke and (the attestation for) *Ev an argument for the reliability of the witness. That is unsatisfactory insofar the difference between *Ev and Luke is unfailingly attested and an entirely undeniable condition for *Ev. Without this difference, we would not know of this text in the first place, and neither could we identify it. Once more, the implicit presupposition of Luke-priority becomes apparent. The premise of Luke-priority implies that *Ev must reflect the text of canonical Luke even in all those passages for which Marcion saw no reason to intervene editorially. Whenever the heresiologists attest semantically inconspicuous differences that are not understood as biased edits, doubts arise about the reliability of the witnesses. That is presumably the reason for why Roth attributes ‘a greater likelihood’ to the agreements with Luke. Roth’s argumentation purely reflects that of Harnack; and it presumes Luke-priority.

...

For Roth, the thesis of a mixed text appears to be a rather theoretical solution, and he utilized it only rarely. Roth deems it more likely that the heresiological presentations mistakenly reverted to the Matthean wording.

...

From where does Roth know ‘the wording of Marcion’s Gospel’ if not from the attestation by Adamantius? The ‘distance’ diagnosed for Adamantius does refer not at all to ‘the wording of Marcion’s Gospel’ but rather to the wording of canonical Luke. Yet again, that presumes Luke-priority.

This kind of criticism isn't entirely unjustified. I thought that I was similarly observing unstated premises when reading Roth's thesis.

Given that BeDuhn (2017) has since ruled essentially in favor of *Ev coming before Luke, citing Klinghardt (2015), this laconic comment from Klinghardt (2015, reproduced in the later English translation) on BeDuhn (2013) wouldn't necessarily apply in the same way to Bilby and BeDuhn (2023), which Klinghardt could not have read anyway.

For reasons explicated in the epilogue, BeDuhn’s and Roth’s reconstructions are mentioned only occasionally.

[Peter Kirby]

In the English translation (2020), Klinghardt recognized a criticism made of his 2015 work by BeDuhn (p. 428):

Above all, not taking into account all of the heresiological sources Harnack had accumulated is one of my shortcomings. Even if I occasionally referenced and utilized sources other than Tertullian, Epiphanius, and the Adamantius dialogues, I never evaluated them systematically. I assumed that the reliability of individual statements would remain indeterminate, albeit mistakenly. As correctly pointed out by Jason BeDuhn, this negligence impaired the worth of my reconstruction. Moreover, it is inconsistent and methodologically untenable.

For the English translation I improved on the German edition and tried to address these shortcomings and included additional heresiological sources for several passages.

This provided for some changes in the 2020 reconstruction, albeit "marginal."

[Peter Kirby]

Perhaps no other statement makes more apparent the stark contrast in methodology between Roth and Klinghardt (p. 431):

If an attestation for *Ev deviates from canonical Luke, it speaks not against, but for the veracity of the witness.

[Secret Alias]

Did you ever notice in Dialogue of Adamantius that it is Adamantius who uses the term Apostolikon.

[Secret Alias]

Why do people believe what Church Fathers sake about Marcion?