External evidence that (Matthew and) canonical Luke comes after *Ev

[JarekS]

Gnostics were based on creating their own content and not selecting the best writings: the most popular, easy to teach, adapted to a mass audience. They lost because they had to - they wanted to prove themselves as creators, charismatic writers/speakers, they did not develop a structure.
Paul's Letters are a classic product - the figure of an Apostle from the past providing the necessary tradition. Adapted to the capabilities of both average missionaries and the faithful.
The Gospels are a risky product - out of nothing, a mythical narrative is created, unknown to anyone before, with the events and speeches of Jesus invented by the authors. Ignored by the elites, they became a hit for the masses.

[davidmartin]

Gnostics were based on creating their own content and not selecting the best writings: the most popular, easy to teach, adapted to a mass audience. They lost because they had to - they wanted to prove themselves as creators, charismatic writers/speakers, they did not develop a structure.
Paul's Letters are a classic product - the figure of an Apostle from the past providing the necessary tradition. Adapted to the capabilities of both average missionaries and the faithful.
The Gospels are a risky product - out of nothing, a mythical narrative is created, unknown to anyone before, with the events and speeches of Jesus invented by the authors. Ignored by the elites, they became a hit for the masses.

So you're saying the problem with the idealistic gospel Jesus is he's an awful model for a 'pastor + laity' gig?

yes, I do find it easier to picture Paul's letters as basically copying an existing model of an apostle and his/her gospel. the framing of Paul as "the last' apostle is a sort of confession that 'the product' isn't the first one, and yet the epistles are considered traditionally the earliest writings.
i think the gospels are the remnants from the 'other gospels' that were around earlier

the Paul letters i recon can be dated to about the same time as the early/proto 'Christian' Gnostics and in the NT the 'product line' got padded out with earlier gospel material. I mean, in the NT you can see pretty much all the 'traditions' represented which is probably a function of the centralising 'Catholic' approach!

[JarekS]

The religious content market works like any other. There is some content offer from which market players select products and attack selected groups of consumers. If you choose or create niche products for a niche group, you will lose because in religion the most important thing is the territorial scope and the number of believers. Gnostics? yes.
Marcion has no ambition to create unique content of its own, but selects products from generally available shelves. It is important that they match the goals he has set for himself. He focuses on the rapid training of a large number of missionaries who are initially provided with the letters of Paul and Evangellion. Content from the headquarters will flow further to the missionaries to maintain the interest of the newly acquired believers.
There are still creative people who provide content. And here you can see different attitudes and ideas. A classic creation that suits any religion - the Great Apostle/Prophet, after revealing God, teaches, instructs and complains. Placed in the past, it gives its message a noble patina.
The Gospels, or fortune favors the brave - presenting the narrative about Jesus and placing him in time and space. Risky, therefore anonymous.

[GakuseiDon]

The religious content market works like any other. There is some content offer from which market players select products and attack selected groups of consumers. If you choose or create niche products for a niche group, you will lose because in religion the most important thing is the territorial scope and the number of believers.

If you haven't read it already, I strongly recommend Heidi Wendt's book "At the Temple Gates" where she goes into depth about the religious market and the flourishing of freelance religious entrepreneurs in the first few centuries:
https://www.amazon.com/At-Temple-Gates- ... 0190267143

Heidi Wendt investigates the backdrop of this enthusiasm for the religion of freelance experts by examining their rise during the first two centuries of the Roman Empire. Unlike civic priests and temple personnel, freelance experts had to generate their own authority and legitimacy, often through demonstrations of skill and learning in the streets, in marketplaces, and at the temple gates, among other locations in the Roman world. Wendt argues that these professionals participated in a highly competitive form of religious activity that intersected with multiple areas of specialty, particularly philosophy and medicine. Over the course of the imperial period freelance experts grew increasingly influential, more diverse with respect to their skills and methods, and more assorted in the ethnic coding of their practices. Wendt argues that this context engendered many of the innovative forms of religion that flourished in the second and third centuries, including phenomena linked with Persian Mithras, the Egyptian gods, and the Judean Christ.

It made me think very differently about the role of Paul in early Christianity. He was the charismatic travelling evangelist as contrasted against James' staid central authority.