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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: The Priority of Marcion
  • Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 13:22:27 -0400


Steve Black asks:

>>Does any one know where the Marcion's versions of Paul's letters
might be downloaded (hopefully in English)?<<

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/3827/ By The Center for
Marcionite Research, operated by a slightly offbeat gentleman who
seems to possess some modern-day gnostic beliefs. However, the
center's electronic "library" has links to a number of scholarly
online articles about Marcion and reconstructions of his version of
the Gospel of Luke and of Galatians, based on patristic citations.
There is even an interlinear Greek-English text of his version of
Galatians, as reconstructed by the webmaster but based on the
reconstructions of Adolf von Harnack and Theodor Zahn.

Hopefully, you are aware that the church fathers are available online
(and can be downloaded) in various places? Just search their works for
the word "Marcion" especially Tertullian and Epiphanius. Luckily,
there are links to the relevant works of both these authors at the URL
above.

Also, I just realized, there is also a link to Dr. Michael Conley's
article recently discussed on the list.

>>Also, what is the textual witness to the Pauline corpus? What is the
earliest texts we know of? This may be elementary, but it would help
me sort out these issues here.<<

There are three resources I can recommend here:

Bruce Metzger, _The Text of the New Testament_, third enlarged
edition, 1992 (maybe later)

Kurt & Barbara Aland, __The Text of the New Testament_, second revised
and enlarged edition, 1987 (and maybe later)

David Trobisch, _Paul's Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins_, 1994
(and recently available again, I understand)

Then, of course, there are the standard commentaries of the 19th and
early 20th century, such as J. B. Lightfoot's _Notes on the Epistles
of Paul_ (Thessalonians, Corinthians, Romans), and similar
commentaries on Galatians, Colossians & Philemon, and the Philippians
(all reprinted by Hendrickson Publishers as late as 1999)

>>Also, what is the earliest witness to Paul's letters. There is 2
Peter, which is dated around 100-150CE (??). Is that the earliest?
Surely there must be more in other [earlier?] patristic material...<<

Again, look to the libraries of the writings of the church that are
available. The print versions are published relatively cheaply (well,
if $299.90 for a 10 volume set of the Ante-Nicene Fathers can be
considered "cheap" - thank gawd I bought mine in 1977 for $100!). As I
mention, they are available online, but the scans are usually pretty
poor (lots of typos, dislocations and missing text) and they
intentionally left out the indices, since they were unable to reliably
include page references in the originals. Also, sometimes the
introductions to individual works were omitted for reasons unknown. If
you have the hardcopy of volume 1 of the ANF, or can get access to one
(your local library may well have it), I can send you a database of NT
citations found in it, keyed to page numbers.

The problem, though, is that there is no way to absolutely date many
of these documents, and there is reason to be suspicious of their
provenance or editorial history.

>>Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question E.E.
CUMMINGS<<

I always thought that e. e. cummings never capitalized anything,
including his name. <g>





  • Re: The Priority of Marcion, Steve Black, 08/26/2001
    • <Possible follow-up(s)>
    • Re: The Priority of Marcion, David C. Hindley, 08/26/2001

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