Thank you Robert. When you are at a critical point in the project and you are conducting negotiations that determine its future fate, you are ready for anything. All that matters is achieving the goal. Deng knew he had to take back Hong Kong. Nothing else mattered. The British deliberately set difficult conditions for the communists. The answers were the same. Freedom of speech? – Yes of course. Capitalism? -of course, yes. Democracy? – Great. Local government autonomy? – yes, absolutely. Eventually the British stopped coming up with new demands and a treaty was prepared. At a meeting broadcast by the media, it was signed by the British Prime Minister and then signed by Deng. And he left without shaking hands with anyone
You’re right about the Didache, though there is debate about whether the Didache version or Matthew’s version is prior. A defender of Marcionite priority would want to argue that the Didache is prior.
The Didache says that the prayer came from the Lord’s Gospel (“Neither pray ye {as the hypocrites,} but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, {thus pray ye. Our Father . . . “). So that means there was some gospel already in circulation before the Didache that included Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer; so I suppose the proponents of Marcionite priority would need to argue that the Didache was late enough that it post-dates Marcion’s Gospel.
Another interesting thought though: Bart’s retort that Mt is being quoted about 100, and “There’s no way Marcion could be that early” only works on the assumption that Marcion wrote the gospel that we know by his name.
If Marcion’s Gospel wasn’t written by Marcion, but was simply an earlier gospel that he had received, the dates that Marcion was active wouldn’t be relevant to dating the text.
Porphyry there are two approaches to dating *Ev as the first gospel. One is represented by Klinghardt, who estimates that the gospel was written around 90CE. In this way, he avoids discussions with the dating of early patristics, which contain traces confirming the existence of the Gospel. The second one is Vinzent, who questions the dating of the entire patristics and is supported by the works of Otto Zwierlein, with which Bart disagrees, but it is not known why because he refused to discuss this. All this hangs on very controversial theses on both sides regarding the authenticity and dating of 1 Clem, the letters of Ignatius and the Didache
Is there anyone who argues that Marcion’s gospel is after Mark, but still antedates both Marcion himself and Lk (and possibly Matthew)?
In other words, is there anyone who argues that Marcion was sincerely presenting an early gospel, a gospel more primitive than Luke’s, but who doesn’t challenge Marcan priority?
Is there anyone who argues that Marcion’s gospel is after Mark, but still antedates both Marcion himself and Lk (and possibly Matthew)?
In other words, is there anyone who argues that Marcion was sincerely presenting an early gospel, a gospel more primitive than Luke’s, but who doesn’t challenge Marcan priority?
Bart D Ehrman
is there anyone who argues that Marcion was sincerely presenting an early gospel, a gospel more primitive than Luke’s, but who doesn’t challenge Marcan priority?
Bart D Ehrman
That sort of surprises me. Do you know where he discusses this? Is that a pretty mainstream interpretation of Marcion?
I have tried not to define it this way so far, but historical reconstruction based on consensus is simply ridiculous. According to it, in the third decade of the 2nd century, in Rome, where all the gospels, letters and Acts are already known to everyone by heart, a great enthusiast of Christianity appears who, being a promiscuous ascetic, throws his money away left and right. After a few years, he is recognized as an extremely dangerous theological criminal for all of Christianity and thrown out. He is given back the money received from him and ignored socially. He takes some of the most poorly prepared versions of Luke’s gospel and Paul’s epistles and shows everyone how something can be made out of nothing. It turns out that the Roman commune prophetically predicted that, in addition to demonic views, he had demonic organizational abilities.
This wonderfully dramatic story is promoted by biblical scholars who do not know the prose of the lives of enterprising people pursuing their ambitions of building something great and being satisfied with it.
…historical reconstruction based on consensus is simply ridiculous…
The first strategy of all cranks is to attack the idea of expertise. If an opinion requires the demonstration of some kind of expertise in order to be taken seriously then all blowhards and pretenders are automatically excluded. Life is so unfair.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert