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Marcion's Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2017

Matthias Klinghardt
Matthias Klinghardt*
Affiliation:
TU Dresden
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

These three short papers were delivered in the ‘Quaestiones disputatae’ session at the 71st General Meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, held at McGill University, Montreal, on 3 August 2016. The session was chaired by Professor Carl Holladay, President of the Society.

Type
Quaestiones Disputatae
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , April 2017 , pp. 318 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

This is a slightly abridged version of the paper presented in Montréal. For the publication the presentation style was retained; only footnotes and bibliographical references were added.

References

1 Klinghardt, M., Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien (2 vols.; TANZ 60/1–2; Tübingen: Francke, 2015)Google Scholar. An English translation is in preparation.

2 These problems precede and outweigh even a critical reconstruction of the text of the Marcionite Gospel: significant parts of the heresiologists’ testimony, particularly the numerous contradictory attestations, will be evaluated according to the direction of the editorial process.

3 Streeter, B. H., The Four Gospels (London: Macmillan, 1924) 183 Google Scholar.

4 Cf. Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium, i.142–62, 457–74.

5 Tertullian, Marc. 4.43.7.

6 von Harnack, A., Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1924 2 Google Scholar; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1996).

7 E. g. Grant, R. M., ‘Marcion and the Critical Method’, From Jesus to Paul (ed. Richardson, P. and Hurd, J. C.; Waterloo: Wilfried Laurier University Press, 1984) 207–15Google Scholar; Lieu, J., ‘Marcion and the Synoptic Problem’, New Studies in the Synoptic Problem (BETL 239; ed. Foster, P.; Leuven etc.: Peeters, 2011) 747 Google Scholar.

8 Schmidt, J. E. Chr., ‘Das ächte Evangelium des Lucas, eine Vermuthung’, Magazin für Religionsphilosophie, Exegese und Kirchengeschichte 5 (1796) 468–520, at 483Google Scholar.

9 Tertullian, however, does report the reverse charge by the Marcionites, namely that ‘the gospel’ had been altered and interpolated by their catholic opponents (Marc. 4.4.1). I see no reason to challenge the historicity of this counterclaim.

10 Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium, i.181–347.

11 Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium, i.276–304. Recent explanations of this phenomenon assume, therefore, the priority of John before Luke; cf. Shellard, B., ‘The Relationship of Luke and John: A Fresh Look at an Old Problem’, JThS 46 (1995) 71–98 Google Scholar; Matson, M. A., In Dialogue with Another Gospel (Atlanta: SBL, 2001)Google Scholar.

12 Cf. Wolter, M., Das Lukasevangelium (HNT 5; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 691 Google Scholar, who states that no model of the tradition history can explain this complexity.

13 Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium, i.374–80. For dating the gospels, also cf. Vinzent, M., Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels (Leuven etc.: Peeters, 2014)Google Scholar.

14 Cf. Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium, i.72–113 (and ii.1209–79, with the list of all variant readings as reported for the Marcionite Gospel). An online version of this list is under construction (https://marcionbible.tu-dresden.de/marcionvariants_en.html) and will be updated.

15 The assessment in Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium, ii.1019–28, needs to be corrected: 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. I owe this important insight to Kevin Künzl (Dresden), who generously shared his convincing analysis with me.

16 Cf. Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium, i.311–47.

17 Cf. Trobisch, D., The First Edition of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Harnack dismissed this problem nonchalantly with one casual remark: ‘That Marcion's Gospel is nothing else than what the early church claimed about it, namely, a falsification of Luke, no more words need to be wasted’ (Harnack, Marcion, 240*); Harnack did not return to this problem for the remaining 700 pages of his book. He simply relied on the older scholarship from around 1850, which he had superficially summarised fifty years earlier in his first scholarly work, a thesis written during his second year at college; cf. von Harnack, A., Marcion: Der moderne Gläubige des 2. Jahrhunderts, der erste Reformator (ed. Steck, Fr.; TU 149; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003) 122–5Google Scholar.