'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

Post by Giuseppe »


...the Marcionite Gospel appears to be the root from which the whole gospel tradition emerges and with which all later stages remain closely connected. Obviously, every subsequent stage had knowledge, and made use of, all available previous stages of this development. This uniformity leads to numerous consequences, including the inquiry about the historical Jesus. Whereas the Two-Source Theory assumes two independent origins, namely Mark and ‘Q’, which allegedly validate each other and thereby claim a certain reliability, this model involves no such thing as an independent source. The search for the ‘historical Jesus’, therefore, becomes a completely different, if not an impossible, task

(from: Matthias Klinghardt. Marcion's Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?, my bold)
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MrMacSon
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

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rgprice wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:59 am In my mind there is a direct relationship between these distinctions in the Gospels and the distinctions between Paul's authentic letters and Colossians and Ephesians/Laodiceans. Mark was produced by someone following Paul's authentic letters, and Marcion's Gospel was produced in the community that created Colossians and Ephesians/Laodiceans. The Sermon on the Plain is modeled on Colossians IMO, and likely comes form someone who had heard Pauline sermons read aloud to congregations, as Colossians instructs its readers to do.
It could be interesting to read

Brodie, T.L., (2001) 'Towards Tracing the Gospels' Literary Indebtedness to the Epistles', in D.R. MacDonald (ed.), Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International): 104-16.

(though it may not show anything new to you, it may confirm Brodie was thinking more 'indebtedness' than he outlines in Birthing)
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MrMacSon
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

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from Matthias Klinghardt Marcion's Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?, New Testament Studies, 2017, 63(2): 318– 323

pp.318-9: Determining the direction of the editorial process is a matter of source criticism, which used to be one of the basic exegetical tools. Although it has been a while since gospel studies were seriously engaged in source criticism, the ground rules of source criticism are straightforward and well known. The basic criterion for determining the direction of the editorial process is editorial plausibility. This criterion can be applied to every single editorial alteration: for which direction and for which text is an alteration more plausible?

However, editorial plausibility must also be applied to the text as a whole. This is as simple as it is fundamental: when an editor makes changes to an older text, these changes should be governed by a coherent editorial concept; otherwise, such an editor would appear to be a literary ‘crank’, to borrow the famous idiom by B. S. Streeter. While such ‘cranks’ may have existed, it is impossible to reconstruct their editorial decisions and concepts as they are completely random.

Determining the greater editorial plausibility with respect to the relation between the Marcionite Gospel and Luke is an undertaking that renders an unambiguous result: in almost every single instance the direction of the editorial process runs from the Marcionite Gospel to Luke. Some passages – such as the beginning of the gospel or the account of the Last Supper – confirm this editorial direction beyond any doubt ...

pp.322-3: A striking illustration of [the sheer number of canonical manuscript variants] is the account of the Last Supper: according to Tertullian’s testimony, the Marcionite Gospel had the account’s ‘short text’.
  • when Tertullian mentions the cup and the covenant (Marc. 4.40.4), he is clearly not referring to the Marcionite Gospel; rather, he is referring to his argument drawn from his own text (which contained the text’s longer version). Tertullian is thus confirming the short text for the Marcionite Gospel.
This so-called short text, however, also turns up in the so-called ‘Western’ manuscripts, and it constitutes one of the ‘Western Non-interpolations’. While there is no doubt that the shorter version of the text is older than the longer version, the longer text actually represents that of canonical Luke. It is, therefore, necessary to distinguish between two editions of the same text: the earlier gospel, which was part of the collection of eleven writings known to be used by the Marcionites, and the gospel’s edited version – namely, our canonical Luke, which is part of the New Testament.

This means, however, that in many cases the presumably older readings do not belong to Luke but to the older Marcionite Gospel: while they are not part of the New Testament, they are, nevertheless, part of one of its sources. All the sophistication employed by textual criticism for determining the oldest variants is of little use when the sought-after text is in fact a younger, secondary phenomenon. This insight applies to the other gospels as well: the evidence suggests that these gospels existed in older versions, and that they, too, were edited as they became part of the New Testament. Many of the older variants of these other gospels also belong to the pre-NT stage.

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MrMacSon
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

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.
pp. 322-3: All the sophistication employed by textual criticism for determining the oldest variants is of little use when the sought-after text is in fact a younger, secondary phenomenon. This insight applies to the other gospels as well: the evidence suggests that these gospels existed in older versions, and that they, too, were edited as they became part of the New Testament. Many of the older variants of these other gospels also belong to the pre-NT stage.

It is a completely new task to establish the text of the New Testament rather than a presumably oldest text which contains readings from the antecedents of the New Testament writings. This task is challenging and requires an entirely new methodology. Nevertheless, distinguishing between two editorial stages of the same text allows us to understand the early history of the textual transmission: taking the revised canonical edition into account provides a systematic explanation for many variants. ‘Systematic’ means that we do not have to postulate a seemingly endless series of individual and uncertain alterations of the text. Instead, we can attribute the origin of many of the variants to this single important step within the emergence of the canonical edition.

Matthias Klinghardt Marcion's Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?, 2017

rgprice
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

Post by rgprice »

I agree with parts of what Brodie said, but don't think that the Sermon on the Plain is a distillation from Matthew. The Sermon on the Mount is an aggregation from the teachings in proto-Luke. The Sermon on the Plain came first and was in proto-Luke. Proto-Luke was almost identical to Luke 3-23 as we have it now.

Mark > Marcion > proto-Luke. GJohn is derived from Marcion, and Matthew and Luke are both derived from proto-Luke. Luke is a harmonization between proto-Luke and GMatthew.
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Ken Olson
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

Post by Ken Olson »

MrMacSon wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 4:00 am from Matthias Klinghardt Marcion's Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?, New Testament Studies, 2017, 63(2): 318– 323
pp.318-9:
Determining the greater editorial plausibility with respect to the relation between the Marcionite Gospel and Luke is an undertaking that renders an unambiguous result: in almost every single instance the direction of the editorial process runs from the Marcionite Gospel to Luke. Some passages – such as the beginning of the gospel or the account of the Last Supper – confirm this editorial direction beyond any doubt ...

Yes, I've read Klinghardt's 2017 paper. Are we supposed to take his word on this? It's a strong assertion unaccompanied by any argumentation. I assume Klinghardt makes an argument and gives supporting evidence in The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels v. 1 (2020), but I haven't seen it, and I gather you haven't either.

Can you give the argument upon which this is based? How can we evaluate Klinghardt's claim without that?

Best,

Ken
Giuseppe
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

Post by Giuseppe »

MrMacSon wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 4:00 am Some passages – such as the beginning of the gospel or the account of the Last Supper – confirm this editorial direction beyond any doubt ...
about the incipit of Luke, this is banally true. Even a blind realizes the omission of what Jesus did in Capernaum.

Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’

(Luke 4:23)

Note that this specific argument about Marcionite priority over Luke was diffused in the web even before the 1999, to my knowledge, when I had never heard about mythicism etc.
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MrMacSon
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

Post by MrMacSon »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 5:47 am
MrMacSon wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 4:00 am
from Matthias Klinghardt Marcion's Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?, New Testament Studies, 2017, 63(2): 318– 323

pp.318-9:
Determining the greater editorial plausibility with respect to the relation between the Marcionite Gospel and Luke is an undertaking that renders an unambiguous result: in almost every single instance the direction of the editorial process runs from the Marcionite Gospel to Luke. Some passages – such as the beginning of the gospel or the account of the Last Supper – confirm this editorial direction beyond any doubt ...

Yes, I've read Klinghardt's 2017 paper. Are we supposed to take his word on this? It's a strong assertion unaccompanied by any argumentation. I assume Klinghardt makes an argument and gives supporting evidence in The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels v. 1 (2020), but I haven't seen it, and I gather you haven't either.

Can you give the argument upon which this is based? How can we evaluate Klinghardt's claim without that?

Like you, Ken, I also assume Klinghardt lays out a full argument in The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels, 2020, and it's 2015 German-text predecessor, Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien. Untersuchung – Rekonstruktion – Übersetzung – Varianten.

The reason I provided those excerpts, especially pp. 318-9, was because he had appealed to [a return to] using more source criticism which he notes "used to be one of the basic exegetical tools", thus

[pp. 318-9:] Determining the direction of the editorial process is a matter of source criticism, which used to be one of the basic exegetical tools. Although it has been a while since gospel studies were seriously engaged in source criticism, the ground rules of source criticism are straightforward and well known. The basic criterion for determining the direction of the editorial process is editorial plausibility. This criterion can be applied to every single editorial alteration: for which direction and for which text is an alteration more plausible?

However, editorial plausibility must also be applied to the text as a whole. This is as simple as it is fundamental: when an editor makes changes to an older text, these changes should be governed by a coherent editorial concept; otherwise, such an editor would appear to be a literary ‘crank’, to borrow the famous idiom by B. S. Streeter. While such ‘cranks’ may have existed, it is impossible to reconstruct their editorial decisions and concepts as they are completely random.

I'm still not sure of an apparent leap from his appeal to using source criticism to editorial plausibility, but I understand that this paper, and the two others with the same title in the same issue of NTS by Judith Lieu and Jason BeDuhn, were the texts of invited oral presentations at a seminar or conference or the like.

I think the point you made previously that, "positions from...shorter articles and from book reviews ... never does justice to the actual arguments put forward in monographs", applies.

The previous post I made trying to summarize the points Markus Vinzent made in the first ~third or so of Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels —about his propositions other than what he's gleaned from Tertullians comments about Marcion— was really hard work b/c some of his commentary is so wide-ranging, especially on Papias and the Prologue of the Gospel of John, and all the many versions of that Prologue: that commentary alone would seem to be an overview worthy of publication as a summary paper. (I was working off photographs of pages and there was the odd page missing in a run of pages, and I'd gone back at one stage to get more more photos but the quality of some is not so good, otherwise I'd post some. Maybe I can get to repeat some and post them.)
Giuseppe
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

Post by Giuseppe »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 3:13 am
...the Marcionite Gospel appears to be the root from which the whole gospel tradition emerges and with which all later stages remain closely connected. Obviously, every subsequent stage had knowledge, and made use of, all available previous stages of this development. This uniformity leads to numerous consequences, including the inquiry about the historical Jesus. Whereas the Two-Source Theory assumes two independent origins, namely Mark and ‘Q’, which allegedly validate each other and thereby claim a certain reliability, this model involves no such thing as an independent source. The search for the ‘historical Jesus’, therefore, becomes a completely different, if not an impossible, task

(from: Matthias Klinghardt. Marcion's Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?, my bold)

Both Klinghardt and I take Marcion’s Gospel as an earlier version of Luke than its canonical form, and as an earlier inspiration and influence on early editions of Mark, Matthew, and John. While my hypotheses and conclusions differ from those of Klinghardt about whether to jettison or revise Q, and whether early Mark was a source or not for two sections of the Gospel of Marcion, on the whole our work has a tremendous amount in common.

https://vocesanticae.com/2021/03/18/the ... ase-notes/
Giuseppe
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Re: 'Methodological Assumptions in the Reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel (Mcn): The Example of the Lord's Prayer'

Post by Giuseppe »

prof Vinzent is going to answer (it was time! :notworthy: ).
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