Robert said

Jarek said (emphasis mine) 

It is important to remember that the conflict over the gospel was not originally raised by conflicting leaders. This is evidently a specially created artificial reason first drawn by Irenaeus of Lyon. It began with mutual theological accusations. …

So, dear Jarek, have you changed your view about Marcion not being interested in theology? If there were mutual theological accusations, this seems to admit that Marcion was indeed interested in theology. Do you have an opinion on the content of Marcion’s Antitheses? 

  

Marcion throws 200,000 sesterces on the table, they accept them and sit down at the table together to arrange the merger of the two companies. For 4 years. The problem is that on the other side there is no company with a strong management yet. No agreement is reached, the parties remain competitors. And what were they supposed to tell the faithful that they had argued about the division of managerial positions, places in the management board and supervisory board?
You draw an interpretation of the enemies of Marcion’s only (non-existent today) writing that compares the Luke texts with the LXX texts. After all, the interpretation was the same – the Jews did not know and did not understand God, and the Christians got to know GOD thanks to Christ. God is not a vengeful creator, but he is good and perfect. This was about the same God who transfigured Jesus in the presence of Moses and . … Elijah? in *Ev. 

They listened to him for a couple of years because they didn’t understand the source of his success, and he followed each one of them and asked “do you recognize me?”. For much too long..
In the end, they decided that they could manage without him.

Robert said
So you do now acknowledge a theological perspective for Marcion, an anti-Jewish perspective, but nonetheless a theological perspective. I was listening to M David Litwa yesterday, and he said that Marcion got on well with the Jews. Not sure what he was basing this on; will have to investigate further.

  

I don’t believe a word about Marcion that his competitors say. They didn’t give the money back and they lied as hard as they could. It’s worth as much as the orthodox stories about the sexual promiscuity of the gnostics. This orthodox literature is the equivalent of NKVD reports about Stalin’s opponents.

Marcion’s probably correct relationship with the Jews was also mentioned by Bart in Lost Christianities.
For me personally, Christ was betrayed by the Jews and then crucified by the Romans because the author of the story was a Greek who looked with contempt at his rulers and looked with reluctance at his competitors.

Robert said

Jarek said  

I don’t believe a word about Marcion that his competitors say. They didn’t give the money back and they lied as hard as they could. It’s worth as much as the orthodox stories about the sexual promiscuity of the gnostics. This orthodox literature is the equivalent of NKVD reports about Stalin’s opponents.

Marcion’s probably correct relationship with the Jews was also mentioned by Bart in Lost Christianities.

For me personally, Christ was betrayed by the Jews and then crucified by the Romans because the author of the story was a Greek who looked with contempt at his rulers and looked with reluctance at his competitors.

If you don’t believe anything at all that his enemies say about Marcion, I guess that allows you to make up anything you want. A pure fantasy novel. Or, how do you know that the Roman Christians did not give Marcion his money back? Just a logical presumption that people tend not to give money back?

Can you please quote what Bart says about Marcion’s relationship with the Jews?

  

I have an audio version from Audible only. As far as I remember, Bart expressed the supposition that the whole history of Christian-Jewish relations would be less conflictual if Marcion and his church won the competition with the orthodox because there would be no points of contact/conflict – the LXX would remain Jewish Scripture, different God, etc.. Marcion and Ebionites part of the book

Robert said
OK. How about answering my other question:

If you don’t believe anything at all that his enemies say about Marcion, I guess that allows you to make up anything you want. A pure fantasy novel. Or, how do you know that the Roman Christians did not give Marcion his money back? Just a logical presumption that people tend not to give money back?

  

It wasn’t a loan. There’s nothing to return. They were ashamed that they had accepted a grant from someone they later declared their worst enemy. They didn’t have to return anything, but they announced the return, because the subsidy had to be widely known, and they publicized the later conflict themselves. It is PR only

Steefen said
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy

Jason BeDuhn

Marcion’s falling-out with members of the Roman Christian leadership may have been expressed through rival interpretations of certain sayings of Jesus, regardless of the larger ideological differences that may have stood behind the argument.

Our sources seem to share the impression that such exegetical conflict lit the spark of dissension.

Tertullian and Philastrius of Brescia (the latter probably dependent on the former) associate the conflict with two sayings of Jesus:

1) Luke [of course] 6: 43

and

2) Luke 5: 36-37

 

Pseudo-Tertullian mentions only the first while

Epiphanius mentions only the second.

Marcion had a belief that Jesus brought a fundamentally new message and way of practicing religion at odds with the Jewish religious tradition.

 

Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy

The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of John are post-war literature. Of course, there would be a message newer than Temple Judaism and Jewish Apocalypticism. Of course, anything Marcion was selling/evangelizing would be newer than Temple Judaism and Jewish Apocalypticism.

The Temple was gone! Yom Kippur should not have been vulnerable to attack but it was.

No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. (6: 43)

“No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will tear the new garment as well, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. (5: 36-37)

We are free of Temple Judaism and Jewish Apocalypticism with its messianism and Jewish Son of Man. The god war is over.

Jewish Apocalypticism with its messianism and Jewish Son of Man all was a bad tree bearing bad fruit, producing old wine.

Steefen, Argumentation Specialist as Opponent to Marcion

But the antiquity of Temple Judaism lends us the power of prestige.

Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy

The zealous rebels found out the limits of that power during the Jewish Revolt.

Moses did not defeat Egypt! Even if you incorrectly assign 19th Dynasty Ramesses II as Moses’ nemesis, other dynasties followed.

New Moses, Jesus, did not defeat the Roman Empire in 33 C.E.j or 30 C.E. Jesus did not cut off the water supply to Rome by bringing down a section of a major aqueduct. AND, there were other Roman emperors after Emperor Titus and the destruction of Pompeii.

  

To me, the process is the same as any other religious initiative within a major religion. It began with a new movement proclaiming the revelation of Christ based on the prophecies and exegesis of the LXX. The new revelation of Paul or Joseph Smith or Ptolemy is no different in concept
These unique interpretations of the LXX led to a new literature. Initially, the concepts were timid and untestable – I had an epiphany and this is what was born as a result. Theology, ethical teaching, some narration and the Great Apostle.
Until finally, the gospels that set the market in motion and efficient leaders showed up.
There was no miracle. The right offer at the right time addressed to the right group of people.

Robert said

Jarek said

Benchmark. A donation is not a transaction. This is a voluntary action, without the recipient’s obligations. That’s why donors don’t get their money back. There is no such case. Markus Vinzent, as the only biblical scholar, addressed this issue in a creative way, trying to take into account the realities and tradition (resulting from one or two records of Tertullian). Vinzent claims that Marcion was in control of this capital all the time and that he himself took it when he left Rome.

It doesn’t quite do the job. Why write about the donation and its return if it was de facto non-existent?

What about returning funds to the enemy when both sides prepare for war? Some kind of madness or PR. I’m betting on the second. “We gave everything to the penny” sounds very good.  

So, as I said above, just a logical presumption that people tend not to give money back. But you are at least partially accepting that part of his enemies’ account that there was a donation. Why not accept any of their account about Marcion’s having specific theological positions? How do you know that he had no theological perspective?

  

What is most incomprehensible is that Tertullian mentioned this subsidy. He shouldn’t be doing that. Apparently he felt he had to do it and explain it in favor of the orthodox. This can mean one thing. Marcion had kept this whole bunch of chatty losers for years. The same is true of the writings and letters in the anti-Marcian preface to John. They must have done something with the books Marcion had brought. Well, the books were not of Marcion, but of the brothers from Pontus. So in Rome they had neither money nor books.

Theology is a good cover story to hide the real reason for the argument, it never gets old as the history of the Catholic church shows. They could argue about anything: money, girlfriend, boyfriend, positions, territory, structure. And what ? Would they say it publicly?

Robert said

Jarek said

What is most incomprehensible is that Tertullian mentioned this subsidy. He shouldn’t be doing that. Apparently he felt he had to do it and explain it in favor of the orthodox. This can mean one thing. Marcion had kept this whole bunch of chatty losers for years. The same is true of the writings and letters in the anti-Marcian preface to John. They must have done something with the books Marcion had brought. Well, the books were not of Marcion, but of the brothers from Pontus. So in Rome they had neither money nor books.

Theology is a good cover story to hide the real reason for the argument, it never gets old as the history of the Catholic church shows. They could argue about anything: money, girlfriend, boyfriend, positions, territory, structure. And what ? Would they say it publicly?

Problem is, you have no evidence whatsoever for your contention that Marcion did not have his own theological perspective. Pure fantasy novel on your part. It could be a cover story therefore it must have been a cover story, and you can imagine whatever you want as the true story that was being covered up. Quid si …? Sic ergo factum est.

Dear Jarek, why have you abandoned your skeptical mindset in favor of a pure fantasy novel?

  

Robert, you know all the theological aspects of Marcion from the reports of his enemies. It’s as if you were recreating Osip Mandelstam’s poetry from his testimonies written down by an NKVD torturer in Lubyanka. Marcion had a theological concept, but how important was it to him as a leader? Same as my love of heavy metal when I was selling pop ringtones for cell phones. He was ahead of them because he knew how to break through and take foreign scriptures and use them in a perfect way. And his competitors tried endlessly to sell their own exegesis and their own interpretations and could not create the slightest institutional and organizational basis.
But they have learned…

They all write about theology, mutilation of the gospel, heresy. And the real reasons jump out from between the lines..

Robert said

Jarek said

… Marcion had a theological concept, but how important was it to him as a leader? Same as my love of heavy metal when I was selling pop ringtones for cell phones. …

How do you know this?

He was ahead of them because he knew how to break through and take foreign scriptures and use them in a perfect way. And his competitors tried endlessly to sell their own exegesis and their own interpretations and could not create the slightest institutional and organizational basis.

If this were so, how come none of Marcion’s works or versions of scripture have survived?

They all write about theology, mutilation of the gospel, heresy. And the real reasons jump out from between the lines..

Dear Jarek, do you have any idea how ridiculous this sounds?

  

On the mass market, the winner is the one who knows the customer, knows how to choose a product for him, and knows how to deliver it. Personal preferences are a private matter and should be forgotten at work.

Marcion had to choose from the same early Christian literature as the Orthodox, a sample of which we know from the list of manuscripts of L. Hurtado. Among the manuscripts are fragments of Paul’s epistles and a gospel that we identify as Luke, but who knows what that is. Not much of that in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

Ireneus invented that 4 gospels, 4 winds are needed and heretics read only one. It was an allegation made up by him. But what pained him was that his own disciples were leaving him and applying to Marcion’s organization. These four winds are his response to the humiliation he experienced.