Thursday, November 11, 2021

So, Marcion fabricated the Pauline Epistles? Yeah, right

Since my "Sem exit" at the end of my studies for the ministry at a conservative Lutheran seminary decades ago, I've still kept up with major trends in critical Christian theology and exegesis. For example, though I don't agree with every take of every member of its core, I know what the basic tenets of the Copenhagen school of Tanakh / Old Testament criticism are.

That said, I had not, until earlier this month, heard of the Dutch Radical School of New Testament criticism. I came across it via Wiki's page on Jesus mythicism. And, it's not new or newish, unlike Copenhagen. It started nearly 150 years ago, under the influence of Bruno Bauer, which might say something.

One of its main claims, as explicated well in this piece, is that since Marcion appears to be the first person to attest the entire Pauline corpus, he must have created it! Yes, really.

I find this silly.

Further Googling showed me one of these Dutch critics' reconstruction of Marcion's version of Galatians. Here's the standard Greek, also translated into English. Comparing chapter 1 alone shows that claims that the "orthodox" version of Galatians is full of rough transitions is laughable; Marcion's version is far more abrupt on that. (That said, maybe some other Dutch Radical critics would then trot out the old text critical tool, "the more difficult reading is to be preferred," and use that to argue for Marcion being original.)

Now, that said, there IS one other interesting point.

Some of the Jesus mythicists who claim that Marcion did create the Pauline corpus point to the amount of Gnosis or proto-Gnosticism in Paul's letters. That's pretty obvious in Pseudo-Paul II/IIa, the author of Colossians. (Pseudo-Paul I is the author of 2 Thessalonians. The "II/IIa" allows for different authors of Colossians and Ephesians; Pseudo-Paul III of course wrote the Pastorals. That's my nomenclature.)

Anyway, just looking at Galatians 1, the amount of proto-Gnosticism there is pretty big. Galatians 4, with this interlinear to illustrate, is key. You've got the "στοιχεῖα" or "elements of this world," a key Gnosticizing term also found in Colossians. Then in the next verse, Jesus is born in the fullness of time, and "fullness" is of course that old Gnosticizing "πλήρωμα".

I've often thought that 1 Corinthians 15 and Paul's creation (sic, "what I have received from the Lord [ie direct revelation, not James or Peter]) of the Eucharist is Gnosticizing, too. That's especially if the "παραδίδωμι" (exact form is "παρεδίδετο") of verse 22 is properly translated as either "arrested" or better "handed over" rather than "betrayed" and you forget the Judas story of the Gospels.

For more on παραδίδωμι see Liddell and Scott. In the NT, per Strong's, note that all translations of "betrayed" or "handed over" in other passages involve an agent, unlike here.

To whom was Jesus handed over? Well, maybe the "στοιχεῖα"? I know that "orthodox" critical scholars resist claims of Paul engaging in proto-Gnosticism. But, the language is clear in Galatians, either his earliest or second-earliest letter. And, while Colossians is indeed most likely a pseudopigraphic work, it's likely from no later than 80 CE, so a first-generation follower of Paul thought he was interpreting him correctly.

That doesn't mean that the mythicists are right that early Christians thought of Jesus as a "space being," contra the laughable claims of Mark Carrier that I skewered earlier. After all, a Gnosticized version of an "adoptionist" Christology is certainly possible, and while Paul says he doesn't really know any biography of Jesus, he DOES clearly state that Jesus was "born," and was a human being. Indeed, he said that in that same Galatians 4:4 where he talks about the "fullness of time"!

One other point undercutting the mythicists and the Dutch Radicals, and that's re the claim that Marcion fabricated the Pauline corpus. Traditional critical theology, especially in more modern versions, accepts that the Synoptic Gospels are dependent on Pauline thought. This would presume being dependent in some way on written Pauline thought.

If Irenaeus in 180 CE is explaining why "orthodox" Christianity accepts exactly four Gospels, and something quasi-canonical is already in place then, that leaves damned little time for three gospels, setting aside John, to be finalized, especially vis a vis the "Synoptic problem." It also ignores that Tatian's Diatesseron was even earlier.

Now, if one wants to go way out into Klaatu-land, I suppose one could claim the Synoptics have no dependence on a Marcion-faked Pauline corpus, but that's more laughable yet!

That Dutch Radical link I posted above engages in special pleading. I Clement and the Letters of Ignatius should also according to them not be considered genuine. That's not to say that Ignatius' letters don't have problems. But, even if they are spurious, it's still no direct support for claiming Marcion as the author of the Pauline corpus, and it still doesn't address Synoptic dating. I know Bruno Bauer put the Synoptics in the second century, but I reject that. And, what do you about the Didache, for which I accept a dating of no later than the end of the first century CE?

And claims that Pauline tropes like the ingathering of Israel in Romans MUST be dated after the second Jewish Revolt? As laughable as John A.T. Robertson claiming the entire New Testament canon had to be pre-70 because no books mention the destruction of the Temple.

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