BeDuhn's & Klinghardt's solutions to the Synoptic Problem

[Ben C. Smith]

All Roth (and Judith Lieu) seem to be doing presently is 'throw shade' and negate, eg.

1. at the current SBL/AAR conference -

   Marcion’s Gospel and the Textual History of Luke
   
   Program Unit: Gospel of Luke 
   Dieter Roth, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
   
   After a period of time in which there was a slight lull in the study of Marcion and Marcion’s Gospel, the new millennium has witnessed a resurgence in scholarly work on this important second century figure and the Gospel he utilized. Several new reconstructions of Marcion’s Gospel have been published in the past few years (e.g., BeDuhn, Klinghardt, Roth) and a variety of monographs related to Marcion have devoted extensive discussion to his Gospel text (e.g., Lieu, Moll, Tyson, Vinzent). Despite widely divergent scholarly opinion on precisely how Marcion’s Gospel and Luke are related, that they are related has been nearly universally recognized in the history of research on Marcion's Gospel. For this reason, one should remain cognizant of the fact that a better understanding of the text of Marcion’s Gospel may provide important insight into the textual history of Luke. At the same time, however, all of these issues are related to the thorny questions surrounding the reconstruction of Marcion’s Gospel. Thus, in this paper the requisite methodological precision* for reconstructing Marcion’s Gospel is considered through critical interaction* with recent reconstructions of his text in order to then offer a series of preliminary conclusions concerning the place of Marcion’s Gospel when studying the textual history of and creating a textual apparatus for Luke.
   
   https://www.sbl-site.org/meetings/Congr ... etingId=33
   
   * Roth's appeal to precision and 'critical interaction' seem spurious as it's an ongoing proposal from him, ie. it's all he's done in the last 3 yrs

Okay, what am I missing? Where is the shade? It all sounds quite normal to me.

Also:

There has been at least one attempt to compare Roth's and Klinghardt's reconstructions -

And then you give a long snippet that does not mention Roth at all. Did you cross some wires somewhere?

[MrMacSon]

... Did you cross some wires somewhere?

Yes. I had another post below that substantive one, but I have now included that info in the substantive one, and I have posted the Gramaglia in the second post. See the now-edited previous posts on the previous page.

[MrMacSon]

Okay, what am I missing? Where is the shade? It all sounds quite normal to me.

Roth's posts on Larry Hurtado's blog (in recent years) and the chapter cited above offer negative commentary without solutions.

Certainly, while I've just dissed the outline of Roth's SBL/AAR presentation, there is some indication he is now offering more than negativity per se, -eg. -

Marcion’s Gospel and the Textual History of Luke

Program Unit: Gospel of Luke 
Dieter Roth, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

... in this paper the requisite methodological precision for reconstructing Marcion’s Gospel is considered through critical interaction with recent reconstructions of his text in order to then offer a series of preliminary conclusions concerning the place of Marcion’s Gospel when studying the textual history of and creating a textual apparatus for Luke.

https://www.sbl-site.org/meetings/Congr ... etingId=33

[Ben C. Smith]

Okay, but I am just saying that it is perfectly normal, once one has written a monograph on a topic, to review other monographs on that same topic and critique them. "Throwing shade" sounds like more than just a critique. It sounds like something personal may be involved, though I readily admit I am not fully "up" on how modern internet slang (like "throwing shade") works all the time.

[MrMacSon]

Okay, but I am just saying that it is perfectly normal, once one has written a monograph on a topic, to review other monographs on that same topic and critique them.

Sure, but Roth has been doing more than that in a negative way, rather than in a constructive sense, eg. the page below from his chapter titled 'Marcion's Gospel and the Synoptic Problem in Recent Scholarship', Chapter 14 in Gospel Interpretation and the Q-Hypothesis; Mogens Müller & Heike Omerzu eds. Bloomsbury Publishing, 5 Apr. 2018. .

It should be noted that Vinzent said in the beginning of that book (Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels) -- near, if not next to, the passage at the top that Roth cites (about a 'forthcoming reconstruction') -- that it was not his intention to provide a complete reconstruction in that book -ie. Roth and Foster, who Roth cites (at footnote 16), are nit-picking (as have others). Roth devotes this whole page (below) to dissing Vinzent despite Roth saying at the start of his chapter that "space precludes a full discussion of the range of proposals found in the writings of Markus Vinzent, Matthias Klinghardt, Jason BeDuhn, and Judith Lieu.." (Roth; p. 268, top).

Roth disses Vinzent.PNG (461.42 KiB) Viewed 9177 times

[Ulan]

I think all those complaints look like valid scientific criticisms. I would also dismiss conclusions that are impossible to follow even for an expert on the same field. We will see whether Roth changes his judgment after Vinzent has done the legwork.

[MrMacSon]

I think all those complaints look like valid scientific criticisms. I would also dismiss conclusions that are impossible to follow even for an expert on the same field. We will see whether Roth changes his judgement after Vinzent has done the legwork.

Vinzent has done the leg work: as Roth says on that page (in my previous post^^), "he provides lengthy citations from Marcion's gospel ..". And there are screes of it in Vinzent's book: most of it is Marcion's Gospel, albeit his version (though Vinzent does cite Roth's 2009 PhD). Roth could and should criticize what Vinzent says is 'Marcion's Gospel' before he criticises Vinzent's use of it. But he doesn't. All he does is whine about 'novel numbering' and reproduce other's superficial commentary.

Certainly, there should be work done on the various reconstructions (of Roth, Moll, Klinghardt, Vinzent, and others) to try to discern points of agreement and disagreement to try to come up with a meta-analysis near-consensus version, but remember most of these versions were published concurrently, in 2014 (Vinzent) and 2015 (Roth and Klinghardt).

Methinks there's a pride aspect to Roth's approach.

[Ben C. Smith]

Okay, but I am just saying that it is perfectly normal, once one has written a monograph on a topic, to review other monographs on that same topic and critique them.

Sure, but Roth has been doing more than that in a negative way, rather than in a constructive sense, eg. the page below from his chapter titled 'Marcion's Gospel and the Synoptic Problem in Recent Scholarship', Chapter 14 in Gospel Interpretation and the Q-Hypothesis; Mogens Müller & Heike Omerzu eds. Bloomsbury Publishing, 5 Apr. 2018. .

It should be noted that Vinzent said in the beginning of that book (Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels) -- near, if not next to, the passage at the top that Roth cites (about a 'forthcoming reconstruction') -- that it was not his intention to provide a complete reconstruction in that book -ie. Roth and Foster, who Roth cites (at footnote 16), are nit-picking (as have others). Roth devotes this whole page (below) to dissing Vinzent despite Roth saying at the start of his chapter that "space precludes a full discussion of the range of proposals found in the writings of Markus Vinzent, Matthias Klinghardt, Jason BeDuhn, and Judith Lieu.." (Roth; p. 268, top).

I have actually read that chapter before. It is totally fair. What is not fair about it? Vinzent used his own as yet unpublished reconstruction of Marcion's gospel, including his own proprietary numbering system for that text (!), in his analysis of Marcion. This, says Roth, made it hard to evaluate the arguments; I mean, of course they were hard to evaluate, since some of the most important ones (the ones involving the reconstruction) were invisible to the reader! That is as valid and objective a criticism as is possible to find in the humanities.

[Ben C. Smith]

I think all those complaints look like valid scientific criticisms. I would also dismiss conclusions that are impossible to follow even for an expert on the same field. We will see whether Roth changes his judgement after Vinzent has done the legwork.

Vinzent has done the leg work: as Roth says on that page (in my previous post^^), "he provides lengthy citations from Marcion's gospel ..".

What he means is that he has not published (or possibly even finished) the legwork yet. He based arguments on his own reconstruction without actually giving his reconstruction and its various arguments in favor.

Roth could and should criticize what Vinzent says is 'Marcion's Gospel' before he criticises Vinzent's use of it. But he doesn't.

How on earth can he? The text has not been published, so neither Roth nor anybody else can evaluate the arguments that went into that particular reconstruction!

[MrMacSon]

Certainly, there should be work done on the various reconstructions (of Roth, Moll, Klinghardt, Vinzent, and others) to try to discern points of agreement and disagreement to try to come up with a meta-analysis near-consensus version, but remember most of these versions were published concurrently, in 2014 (Vinzent) and 2015 (Roth and Klinghardt).

And I think there is commentary that the differences are not that substantive (I can't remember where I've seen that, besides that of Daniel Dalke; see http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 036#p94036).