Why did Marcion adopt the gospel of Luke?

[Michael BG]

The synoptic problem is likely never to be resolved. People will always want to re-examine it and make out cases for other likely alternatives or alternatives that have been suggested before and not generally accepted.

Hopefully Matthias Klinghardt in his book - The oldest gospel, and the emergence of the canonical Gospels, will provide strong evidence for his position that Mark used Marcion and provide good reasons why Mark didn’t include so much. He will need to address the issue of which have the oldest version of the stories, etc., which he didn’t address in the article I have read. I look forward to an English translation that I can study.

I don’t think your position is much different from mine apart from the totally different use of language. I am not interested in dating the extant manuscripts. I am interested in studying the text to see how it developed and part of this process is when it was written. It seems you do not want to discuss when a text was written but you do want to study the text to see its relationship with other texts and then form your conclusions from there.

When I talk of evidence I am talking about comparing the texts and making out a case for your position of which one used which other one and dealing with the issues. I think Mark Goodacre has done this, but I still feel it has a huge weakness. I don’t think Klinghardt did it with the article I read and you haven’t done it in support of Klinghardt.

[maryhelena]

The synoptic problem is likely never to be resolved. People will always want to re-examine it and make out cases for other likely alternatives or alternatives that have been suggested before and not generally accepted.

Hopefully Matthias Klinghardt in his book - The oldest gospel, and the emergence of the canonical Gospels, will provide strong evidence for his position that Mark used Marcion and provide good reasons why Mark didn’t include so much. He will need to address the issue of which have the oldest version of the stories, etc., which he didn’t address in the article I have read. I look forward to an English translation that I can study.

I don’t think your position is much different from mine apart from the totally different use of language. I am not interested in dating the extant manuscripts. I am interested in studying the text to see how it developed and part of this process is when it was written. It seems you do not want to discuss when a text was written but you do want to study the text to see its relationship with other texts and then form your conclusions from there.

When I talk of evidence I am talking about comparing the texts and making out a case for your position of which one used which other one and dealing with the issues. I think Mark Goodacre has done this, but I still feel it has a huge weakness. I don’t think Klinghardt did it with the article I read and you haven’t done it in support of Klinghardt.

I'm not supporting the means, the method, whereby Klinghardt has arrived at his conclusion regarding Marcion' gospel. As I said, critics can find fault with all the proposed synoptic solutions. From the article I took the *idea* that the Marcion gospel was related to gMark and not gLuke. It's ideas that interest me not how anyone came to these ideas. Ideas don't work like mathematics - add two and three together and one gets five. Ideas are more in tune with creativity than logic.

• ''There is no such thing as a logical method of having new ideas, or a logical reconstruction of this process. Every great discovery contains an irrational element or a creative intuition''. Karl Popper: Objective Knowledge.

How far I can 'run' with Klinghardt' idea I've yet to discover....Was the gospel of Marcion the first gospel, prior to gMark? (which now seems to be Klinghardt' position re his new book.) I'm not sure. I don't know Greek so am unable to know the original words and their meaning - thus having to rely on Greek scholars. While I do place gMark as the earliest of the synoptic gospels I don't hold to gMark being the earliest gospel. The earliest wonder-doer/Jesus and Pilate story is found in material now in Slavonic Josephus.* There is also the Acts of Pilate - which seemingly was know to Justin Martyr. So - plenty of scope for research as to what might have preceded gMark.....

* Josephus' Jewish War and Its Slavonic Version: A Synoptic Comparison
H. Leeming (Editor), K. Leeming (Editor)

[Giuseppe]

@maryhelena

How far I can 'run' with Klinghardt' idea I've yet to discover....Was the gospel of Marcion the first gospel, prior to gMark?

The earliest wonder-doer/Jesus and Pilate story is found in material now in Slavonic Josephus.* There is also the Acts of Pilate - which seemingly was know to Justin Martyr.

maryhelena, I think that it's extremely probable that Pilate was introduced in the Gospel only because the evangelist has taken him from Josephus (therefore in virtue of a pure literary/theological reason, confirming that in real history Pilate didn't crucify no Jesus of Nazareth).

I read this in The Power of Parable, of J.D. Crossan:

Once again I begin with Jesus in Luke’s first volume. Jesus’s only confrontation with direct
Roman authority is in his trial before Pilate. All the gospel writers have Pilate declare Jesus
innocent, but Luke, and only Luke, has Pilate insist three times that Jesus is free of any crime. Luke even counts out Pilate’s declarations of Jesus’s innocence, in case you might miss that emphasis:

[1] Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against
this man.” (23:4)
[2] Pilate…said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people;
and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death.” (23:13–15)
[3] A third time Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no
ground for the sentence of death.” (23:22)
Note that explicit count of “a third time.” Furthermore, Luke, and only Luke, has Jesus appear before both Pilate and Antipas.
Both Pilate and Antipas, both the Rome-appointed subgovernor and the Rome-appointed
tetrarch, agree that Jesus is not guilty of any crime worthy of execution. That sets the pattern for what will be repeated like a refrain throughout Acts.
(p.133)

Note that gMarcion has Jesus appear before both Pilate and Antipas, too.

When Crossan writes:
Luke, and only Luke, has Pilate insist three times that Jesus is free of any crime.
which is the midrashic source whereas Luke presents a Pilate trying to save Jesus three times unsuccessfully?

I find it in Josephus, Antiquities 18:55-60 :

But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar's effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments. (1) Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the night time; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days that he would remove the images; (2) and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment-seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, (3) he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them routed, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea.

Peter says that my opinions are worthless because he (irrationally) thinks it is not a ''rare chance'' that Josephus describes a Roman governor (precisely named 'Pilate'!) who tried unsuccessfully three times to persuade the Jews to accept the symbol of a foreign religion in Jerusalem.

Peter's response is irrational because it would be like saying that it was only for a mere, very rare coincidence that Philo named ''Jesus'' his Logos attributing him the same characteristics of the Jesus of Paul. Contra all the reasons given by Richard Carrier to think otherwise. Peter is very like Bernard: it's no coincidence that he cites Bernard in his footnote.

Therefore proto-Luke, aka Mcn, is the first Gospel for the simple reason that its author midrashically derived from Josephus the whole story of the trial of Pilate against Jesus.

This opens the concrete possibility that:
1) Jesus never existed or
2) Jesus was not crucified by Pilate, but by other people in another time or in another place.

[maryhelena]

@maryhelena

How far I can 'run' with Klinghardt' idea I've yet to discover....Was the gospel of Marcion the first gospel, prior to gMark?

The earliest wonder-doer/Jesus and Pilate story is found in material now in Slavonic Josephus.* There is also the Acts of Pilate - which seemingly was know to Justin Martyr.

maryhelena, I think that it's extremely probable that Pilate was introduced in the Gospel only because the evangelist has taken him from Josephus (therefore in virtue of a pure literary/theological reason, confirming that in real history Pilate didn't crucify no Jesus of Nazareth).

I read this in The Power of Parable, of J.D. Crossan:

Once again I begin with Jesus in Luke’s first volume. Jesus’s only confrontation with direct
Roman authority is in his trial before Pilate. All the gospel writers have Pilate declare Jesus
innocent, but Luke, and only Luke, has Pilate insist three times that Jesus is free of any crime. Luke even counts out Pilate’s declarations of Jesus’s innocence, in case you might miss that emphasis:

[1] Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against
this man.” (23:4)
[2] Pilate…said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people;
and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death.” (23:13–15)
[3] A third time Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no
ground for the sentence of death.” (23:22)
Note that explicit count of “a third time.” Furthermore, Luke, and only Luke, has Jesus appear before both Pilate and Antipas.
Both Pilate and Antipas, both the Rome-appointed subgovernor and the Rome-appointed
tetrarch, agree that Jesus is not guilty of any crime worthy of execution. That sets the pattern for what will be repeated like a refrain throughout Acts.
(p.133)

Note that gMarcion has Jesus appear before both Pilate and Antipas, too.

When Crossan writes:
Luke, and only Luke, has Pilate insist three times that Jesus is free of any crime.
which is the midrashic source whereas Luke presents a Pilate trying to save Jesus three times unsuccessfully?

I find it in Josephus, Antiquities 18:55-60 :

But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar's effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments. (1) Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the night time; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days that he would remove the images; (2) and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment-seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, (3) he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them routed, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea.

Peter says that my opinions are worthless because he (irrationally) thinks it is not a ''rare chance'' that Josephus describes a Roman governor (precisely named 'Pilate'!) who tried unsuccessfully three times to persuade the Jews to accept the symbol of a foreign religion in Jerusalem.

Peter's response is irrational because it would be like saying that it was only for a mere, very rare coincidence that Philo named ''Jesus'' his Logos attributing him the same characteristics of the Jesus of Paul. Contra all the reasons given by Richard Carrier to think otherwise. Peter is very like Bernard: it's no coincidence that he cites Bernard in his footnote.

Therefore proto-Luke, aka Mcn, is the first Gospel for the simple reason that its author midrashically derived from Josephus the whole story of the trial of Pilate against Jesus.

This opens the concrete possibility that:
1) Jesus never existed or
2) Jesus was not crucified by Pilate, but by other people in another time or in another place.

Pilate is part of the gospel Jesus story. Whether the gospel writers 'got' Pilate from Josephus or whether they knew Pilate from history (taking the Pilate Stone as supporting historicity for Pilate) does not reflect on the historicity or ahistoricity of the gospel figure of Jesus. Using historical figures within a literary context, a pseudo-historical context, does not grant historicity to the other figures within the literary story. All Pilate does for the gospel story is supply a time-frame - albeit an ambiguous one at that....

[Giuseppe]

The midrash from Josephus about Pilate is made surely only for theological reasons. Therefore it's not the cause, but only the effect that

All Pilate does for the gospel story is supply a time-frame - albeit an ambiguous one at that....

Note that the name Caiaphas doesn't appear in Luke. Therefore only Pilate implies the time-frame.
Only the Pilate episode implies a Roman crucifixion of Jesus.

Jesus was crucified by the Jews as stated in the Toledoth Jeschu, or he never existed.

[Bernard Muller]

Peter is very like Bernard: it's no coincidence that he cites Bernard in his footnote.

Yes, it seems that Peter thinks I am worthy to be quoted about something he agrees with me entirely. It is to show that a quote without context can lead to the most surprising interpretation.

Note that the name Caiaphas doesn't appear in Luke.

"Caiaphas" does appear in Luke.

Cordially, Bernard

[Peter Kirby]

Peter says that my opinions are worthless because ...

... they are.

Peter is very like Bernard: it's no coincidence that he cites Bernard in his footnote.

Giuseppe and Bernard Muller now have 3 day bans. I'm not going to tolerate being "trolled" in unrelated comments because they were humiliated in argument.

[Michael BG]

Thank you maryhelena I think I have finally understood. You are not interested in the details of any possible theories to producing likely solutions to the origins of Christianity. You are only interested in the board ideas of possible theories. I will try not to expect you to provide reasoned arguments for your support for particular ideas and try to understand your views in those terms.

@ Giuseppe

The generally excepted position is that Jesus was crucified by the Romans and Mark wanted to remove the blame from the government and place it on the Jewish authorities and subsequent gospel writers developed this theme. Is your theory that the Jewish authorities did kill Jesus and the gospel writers only added Pilate after reading Josephus?

I wonder if the oldest tradition lies behind Acts 2:23:

“… to-an-ordained plan and foreknowledge of God given-up by the-means of-those-not-subject-to-the-law (i.e. Gentiles) crucified to death”

Meaning that Jesus was crucified by Gentiles i.e. the Romans.

[maryhelena]

Thank you maryhelena I think I have finally understood. You are not interested in the details of any possible theories to producing likely solutions to the origins of Christianity. You are only interested in the board ideas of possible theories. I will try not to expect you to provide reasoned arguments for your support for particular ideas and try to understand your views in those terms.

Whoa there, Michael BG, hold your horses.......your beginning to sound like someone who used to post to this forum....

When I am advancing my own ideas I provide reasoned argument to support them. I will take ideas from other people and use their ideas to further my own research.

If, in the search for early christian origins you seek certainty then you are on a fool's errand. Be prepared to embrace frustration and disappointment.

All one can hope for is to make a reasonable argument from the available evidence. And, no, evidence is not what some words on a manuscript are interpreted to mean. The days of an Adam and Eve approach to biblical history are long gone. The biblical stories need external evidence to support them - not their own words.

Continue to play the word games by all means - they are as likely to produce a forward movement in the search for early christian origins as that door-step bible-puncher won't get access to your living room....

[Michael BG]

Thank you maryhelena I think I have finally understood. You are not interested in the details of any possible theories to producing likely solutions to the origins of Christianity. You are only interested in the board ideas of possible theories. I will try not to expect you to provide reasoned arguments for your support for particular ideas and try to understand your views in those terms.

Whoa there, Michael BG, hold your horses.......your beginning to sound like someone who used to post to this forum....

When I am advancing my own ideas I provide reasoned argument to support them. I will take ideas from other people and use their ideas to further my own research.

If, in the search for early christian origins you seek certainty then you are on a fool's errand. Be prepared to embrace frustration and disappointment.

All one can hope for is to make a reasonable argument from the available evidence. And, no, evidence is not what some words on a manuscript are interpreted to mean. The days of an Adam and Eve approach to biblical history are long gone. The biblical stories need external evidence to support them - not their own words.

Continue to play the word games by all means - they are as likely to produce a forward movement in the search for early christian origins as that door-step bible-puncher won't get access to your living room....

I assure you I haven’t posted on this web site under another name.

I am glad you will provide “reasonable arguments from the available evidence” for your positions. I hope I will be able to see them as reasonable as I still have concerns that we have a hugely different approach to evidence and use language differently as well.

I do not seek certainty. From reading some of your old posts I think I might be more open to changing my views than you, because I thought I read somewhere that you have held a view for 30 years and don’t need to look at it again. (Of course I may be mistaken.)