The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

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Secret Alias
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The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

Let's start off with 'the facts' as best we know them.
1. Irenaeus says that the gospel of Marcion derives from Luke
2. the Philosophumena says that the gospel of Marcion resulted from additions to Mark (something like 'Secret Mark')
3. Mark doesn't have a grand opening like the gospel of Marcion. The Markan opening is like an episode of Columbo. Jesus just strolls in from an undetermined place to start the action.
4. the Marcionite gospel has a DEFINITE place that Jesus came from (heaven) a definite place that Jesus went to (Jewish house of worship) cf. "from heaven straightway into the synagogue" (De caelo statim ad synagogam AM 4.7.5)
5. Jesus comes to announce the Matthean antitheses. This is clear from certain negative statements made in Against Marcion 4.1 - 7 (i.e. the citation of Matthew 5.27 et al against Marcion) but also as we against see from Ephrem's statement in his Commentary on the Diatessaron "For he was teaching like one with authority and not like their scribes and the pharisees. For these were giving them earthly advice, as in the Law. But our Lord however promised the kingdom of heaven to his disciples. When the crowds heard the splendid teachings of our Redeemer, they recognized that those of Moses were shadows, and that our Lord [was] the Sun of Righteousness [Mal 3:20]. For he gave health of body and healing of soul to humanity."
6. this appearance and announcement leads to an encounter shared by both texts - i.e. the demoniac who knows Jesus
7. the upshot of the Marcionite gospel is clearly to introduce Jesus as a heavenly being; Mark by contrast shields Jesus's identity - he is just 'a man.'
8. the Jewish house of worship ends with the crowd attempting to push Jesus off a cliff and Jesus passing through the crowd (a mention only made in Luke) or flying above them (the Diatessaron) leading to their death falling into the chasm.
Baarda's reconstruction of the shared narrative:
He entered the synagogue as was his custom, on the Sabbath day ... and had begun to teach ... he entered Bethsaida among the Jews. It does not indicate that they said anything to him other than, Physician, heal yourself. ... they stood up and they led Him out [from] the town and brought Him by the side of the hill [on which their town was built,] in order to cast Him down [When?] they cast Him down from the height into the depth [and?]he did not falland was not hurt/harmed... through their midst He passed [and?] He flew [in the air?] and He descended [from above] to Kapharnaum”; Tjitze Baarda, “'The Flying Jesus."
Baarda on the relationship between this Diatessaron narrative and the gospel of Marcion:
A second consideration is that Tatian may have been acquainted with the recension of the Lukan text produced by Marcion.' From several sources we know we know that Marcion omitted the first two chapters of Luke and some of the material of Lk 3-4. In his edition of Luke's Gospel he had arranged the material in such a way that the wording of its begin- ning was thus, 'In the fifteenth year of (the government of) Caesar. Tiberius...(Lk 3:1). If Tatian had knowledge of Marcion's Gospel and used it besides the ordinary text of Luke, this opening text may have influenced his wording of Lk 4:30f. Once having accepted the reading 'He flew', he could easily combine it with Marcion's reading that Jesus descended 'from above' (? 5.3.6) to Kapharnaum. if that were so it is clear that we have to adopt these wods 'from above' as part of Tatian's text. p. 336
Clearly then the gospel of Marcion and the Diatessaron cannot be derived from Mark. In Irenaean terms, Mark's narrative follows a Matthean ordering (according to Irenaeus's and Ammonius's construction of a fourfold construction developed with Matthew in the first column). Irenaeus's attacks the heretics for developing Matthew to nefarious purposes by the addition of extra gospels. Scholars are likely correct that Mark as it survives is the earliest canonical gospel. But Marcion's gospel is not as far as we can see related to this ordering. Think about the statement of Irenaeus (AH 1.8.1) that the stones that make up the right ordering of the gospel (i.e. Matthew as the spine of the gospel with Mark, Luke and John forming subsequent 'columns' for the body.

We have to remember that throughout Against Marcion (originally written by Irenaeus), Against Heresies and the rest Irenaeus pretends that the issue of Jesus being a supernatural being is unclear and requires detailed examination of every other scene in Luke. What the fuck? If 1 - 8 is the introduction to the Marcionite gospel its signed, sealed delivered! Let's revisit:
1. Jesus lives in heaven
2. he has the authority to correct the 'heavenly Torah' given by God
3. a supernatural being (the demon) recognizes Jesus as a heavenly supernatural being
4. he can expel demons, passes through people and flies and has supernatural powers of healing etc.
Against Marcion can't have been carried out in good faith. The argument that the gospel of Marcion can be known by going through the sections shared with canonical Luke is necessarily based on false premises. Irenaeus is not trying to get at the truth. Irenaeus wants to argue for a Matthean original ordering for all other gospel based on the testimony of Papias. Irenaeus is effectively an apologist for the Ammonian Diatessaron. It would seem that Tatian's Diatessaron had Marcion as one of its sources. Not clear which gospel Tatian used as the 'spine' of his fourfold gospel.

But the point is clearly that Irenaeus says that Luke is the source for Marcion's gospel because Marcion's gospel does not follow Matthew. I know this is difficult to understand for some but the whole point of the fourfold gospel is to show Matthean primacy. Ammonius's 'diatessaron' was the source text for Irenaeus. We can see this in AH 3.9 - 10. Irenaeus was using a 'master-text' an exemplar which had Matthew on the left most column - i.e. 'first place.' He wasn't using four texts back to back as we have. When Irenaeus says in 1.8.1 that the heretics add new gospels and move around stones/narratives in the mosaic to make Jesus the king appear as Jesus the fox he assumes that wrong doctrine results from (deliberate) rearrangement of true order.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Secret Alias
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Re: The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

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On Justin's harmony. Bellinzoni:
Therefore, we can conclude with certainty that these five verses are based on a source that was a carefully composed harmony of material from Matthew and Luke and that was based on the order of Matthew 7 https://books.google.com/books?id=F-Z5D ... AHoECAMQAg
Bellinzoni argues that Justin here presents a carefully composed harmony of material from Matthew and Luke that was based on the order of Matthew ... Bellinzoni presents a strong argument for a harmonisation of Matthean and Luke-like material
It would seem logical to assume that Tatian's diatessaron was similarly built around the order of Matthew as the orthodox set or perhaps better, that the orthodox 'set' was based around Matthew as its spine because of Justin's harmony.
“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
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Re: The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

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It has to be considered that one of the orderings of the gospel columns was Matthew-Luke-Mark-John.

Clement of Alexandria in Hypotyposeis says, in a report coming to us through Eusebius, that he knew of a tradition from“the primitiveelders” (παράδοσιντῶν ἀνέκαθεν πρεσβυτέρων) concerning the order of the gospels that the first written Gospels were those that contained the genealogies. Clement goes onto note that Mark summarized Peter's public preaching and John wrote last (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.14.5–6).
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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perseusomega9
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Re: The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

Post by perseusomega9 »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2020 10:50 am
He entered the synagogue as was his custom, on the Sabbath day ... and had begun to teach ... he entered Bethsaida among the Jews. It does not indicate that they said anything to him other than, Physician, heal yourself. ... they stood up and they led Him out [from] the town and brought Him by the side of the hill [on which their town was built,] in order to cast Him down [When?] they cast Him down from the height into the depth [and?]he did not falland was not hurt/harmed... through their midst He passed [and?] He flew [in the air?] and He descended [from above] to Kapharnaum”; Tjitze Baarda, “'The Flying Jesus."
If the opening of GMarcion is just Jesus coming down from heaven and going to preach in the synagogue, how can it be his [Jesus'] custom to go to synagogue if he just came down from heaven? Wouldn't this imply either the reconstruction is wrong, or Marcion is working an earlier narrative?
The metric to judge if one is a good exegete: the way he/she deals with Barabbas.

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Secret Alias
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Re: The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

Post by Secret Alias »

What was first in the Marcionite canon appeared later in the Diatessaron.
“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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Re: The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

Post by MrMacSon »

Mark doesn't seem that big in the Church Father's scheme of things.

I like 'The Markan opening is like an episode of Columbo' and 'Mark by contrast shields Jesus's identity - he is just 'a man'*.'

* eta: 'just a man' - as part of His personification/anthropomorphization; a portrayal.
Last edited by MrMacSon on Fri Jan 31, 2020 3:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

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perseusomega9 wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2020 2:48 pm If the opening of GMarcion is just Jesus coming down from heaven and going to preach in the synagogue, how can it be his [Jesus'] custom to go to synagogue if he just came down from heaven? Wouldn't this imply either the reconstruction is wrong, or Marcion is working an earlier narrative?
or, the narrative was that direct, whether Marcion had written it, or was reproducing an earlier one.
Secret Alias
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Re: The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

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The Columbo reference was from watching a documentary on the writers for the show William Link:
"We wanted to keep him almost mythological. He comes from nowhere and goes back into nowhere.” https://www.metv.com/stories/columbo-cr ... lly-exists (check out the discussion of whether or not Columbo exists or not)
They wanted him to come from a mythical place arriving as if some supernatural force.
https://interviews.televisionacademy.co ... who-talked there was one aspect of Columbo that according to series co-creator William Link, he and Falk didn't always see eye to eye on. It all started when Link made a comment in an interview that suggested that even though Columbo frequently references his family, most of all his wife, the detective might not actually be the straightforward family man that many viewers understood him to be.

In an interview with the Archive of American Television, Link explained, "I have an argument with Falk.” He then went on to tell a story of a time in 1999 when Peter Falk went on Inside the Actors Studio to be interviewed. According to Link, the host James Liptop repeated Link's comment to Falk, saying in the interview that "William Link says that maybe talking about all these relatives and the wife, maybe that’s a fantasy and that Columbo uses this to befuddle and be-fog the murderer." Link said on Lipton's show, Falk laughed off this theory, saying, "Oh, no no, all those people exist."
http://cult-tv-lounge.blogspot.com/2016 ... -1979.html
Last edited by Secret Alias on Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“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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Re: The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

Post by MrMacSon »

That's an interesting portrayal of the character of Columbo. It also allows one to think of the coat as a cape or other such garment - a reflection that imagery is a long-standing, important dimension to human endeavour.
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Re: The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

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The interviews are quite eye-opening. You realize that Link and his partner read literature to make this shit:
The character of Columbo was created by William Link, who said that Columbo was partially inspired by the Crime and Punishment character Porfiry Petrovich as well as G. K. Chesterton's humble cleric-detective Father Brown.
https://columbophile.com/2018/02/17/col ... gin-story/
“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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