Defining Christianity from the Orthodox Recension is Like Arguing Trump is Innocent from Redacted Muller Report [pt 2]

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Secret Alias
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Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Defining Christianity from the Orthodox Recension is Like Arguing Trump is Innocent from Redacted Muller Report [pt 2]

Post by Secret Alias »

I will argue against removal. If I have to sit day after day listening to people draw conclusions from what are clearly tampered texts in the official canon which have had vast amounts of material removed from them, at the very least I can draw attention to the fact that governments have always tampered with controversial texts. Secondly I want to note - perhaps more importantly - how hard it is for journalists and commentators to jump and draw conclusions from texts THEY ALREADY KNOW ARE TAMPERED WITH. We don't have the Muller Report. We have instead a text with 855 redactions. But this doesn't stop countless people from pontificating that we know for certain X, Y or Z. We do the same thing - unconsciously or otherwise - with early Christianity. We don't have the original gospel(s), the original letters of Paul, Acts, Revelation. We have a tampered canon and yet despite the evidence to the contrary we have countless scholars coming to firm 'conclusions' about early Christianity. I don't understand the mental process at work with the Muller Report or the New Testament canon. How can you Stuart come to firm conclusions about Marcionism or its canon when you know there has been tampering? I find this utterly fascinating as a psychological question. Why is the need for certainty always out weigh the disciple for a certain methodology or a methodology which allows for actual certainty? The answer is obvious. We are creatures with fragile egos. We won't admit we don't know things can never know things. We can't stop ourselves from papering over uncertainties with lies or misunderstandings developed from bad evidence.

For instance Against Marcion the text has been tampered with. There clearly is a core text which makes a very different argument than that of the final editor whose 'voice' appears at certain critical moments of the surviving text. For instance at the very beginning:

Nothing I have previously written against Marcion is any
longer my concern. I am embarking upon a new work to replace
an old one. My first edition, too hurriedly produced, I afterwards
withdrew, substituting a fuller treatment. This also, before enough
copies had been made, was stolen from me by a person, at that
time a Christian but afterwards an apostate, who chanced to have
copied out some extracts very incorrectly, and shewed them to a
group of people. Hence the need for correction. The opportunity
provided by this revision has moved me to make some additions.
Thus this written work, a third succeeding a second, and instead
of third from now on the first, needs to begin by reporting the
demise of the work it supersedes, so that no one may be perplexed
if in one place or another he comes across varying forms of it.

'Nothing I have previously written' is a lie. This is not the original author speaking. And then at the beginning of Book Three he appears again as he remodels Against the Jews for inclusion as the third book against Marcion:

Continuing with my reconstruction of the work which was
lost, and following its original lines, I have now to treat of the
Christ, even though, by having completed my proof that divinity
necessarily implies unity, I have rendered this superfluous. That
the Christ cannot be thought of as belonging to any god except
the Creator is involved in the decision already arrived at, that
there cannot be any god besides the Creator. This is the Creator
whom Christ preached: and the apostles after him proclaimed
Christ as belonging to no other god than that God, the Creator,
whom Christ had preached: so much so, that no mention was
ever made of a second god or a second Christ until Marcion's
offence came in. This is quite easily proved by a review of the
apostolic churches and those of the heretics—namely, that where
we find late appearance, there we must decide that the rule of
the faith has been overturned. I have touched upon this already
in my first book.

The point is that there is clear evidence from Book Four that the original author of that book - likely Justin Martyr - defined the Marcionite godhead as involving two powers - one good and another just posting.php?mode=quote&f=3&p=97684. This is at odds with later parts of the work - i.e. the handy work of the aforementioned editor who tends to argue in favor of a Marcionite godhead which is a good god and an evil god.

Given the corruption of transmission of Against Marcion - which resembles at least superficially the reworking of the Muller Report - why do you Stuart think that you can retrieve this corrupted sandwich thrown into the trash? How do you think you can come to firm conclusions about Marcion from a corrupt work?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Defining Christianity from the Orthodox Recension is Like Arguing Trump is Innocent from Redacted Muller Report [pt

Post by Secret Alias »

So my question is no longer an abstract question. It isn't - why are human beings so stupid? But why do you Stuart a person who comes onto this forum as a self-described 'expert' on Marcion come away from Tertullian's Against Marcion with 'firm conclusions' about Marcion and the nature of his heresy when the 'report' - like the current Muller report - is corrupt? Yes one could argue that Barr is an 'additional witness' just as the editor of Against Marcion is an 'additional witness' against Marcion. Perhaps he is correcting the erroneous beliefs of the original author. But why does he lie? Why does Barr lie? Why does the second author lie about him being the original author? Doesn't that cause a difficulty for accepting the conclusions of the Marcion report? For you not at all. But is this because you are a better thinker than me or is it because you are so desperate for some talking points to make yourself an expert that you are willing to accept making conclusions from a corrupted report?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Defining Christianity from the Orthodox Recension is Like Arguing Trump is Innocent from Redacted Muller Report [pt

Post by Secret Alias »

And my point isn't to single out an individual person and say 'you're an idiot because you make what you think are certaintist statements from obviously flawed or corrupt evidence.' My point is to say it is a human trait to do this. We all tend to do this especially about essentially stupid things like making sense of literature. Because what are the consequences for claiming Marcion believed in two gods - one good, the other evil? What will happen to us if we make this sort of error? It really is inconsequential. That's why you allow yourself to buy into falsified information. We all act like Giuseppe in this regard - i.e. since we 'like' a flawed inconsequential error we subconsciously allow ourselves license to stupid conclusions. Where else in life can we do this? We can't do this with respect to paying the bills, relationships, work. So studying meaningless gibberish like Marcion allows us to be the master of a realm - even if it is a wholly imaginary one.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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