The Beginnings of Early Christianity: How does the 2nd century relate to the 1st century

 I received the following friendly enquiry:

"With regard to the books: "Resetting the Origins of Christianity", "Christ's Torah" and "Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity" - I admire the approach of these books to reconstruct historically grown ideas and validity claims retrospectively. I understand that you place weight to the 2nd century for the emergence of the New Testament. So far, however, it has not been entirely clear to me how you establish the relationship between the 2nd century and the 1st century. Sometimes it seems to me that you - like most scholars - assume a Christian movement that began in the 1st century leaving behind textual evidence such as at least the Pauline epistles (or parts of them). But then I have the impression that you - like the Dutch radical critics - think of Christianity as a product of the 2nd century in every respect.

I would be very happy to hear how you understand the relationship between the 2nd century and the 1st century in the development of the Christian tradition (not just the scriptures). 

To this I replied:

In answer to your question, I confess that, in my opinion, the first century has so far been the black box into which researchers (and many outside them) have put what they would like to see in it. As I am only too aware of this danger myself in retrospect, I endeavour first of all not to "assume" either the one position you mentioned, the second or any other position. Rather, I approach it through all the centuries and ask myself which is the earliest achievable level on which we can find contours and constructions (and thereby construct ourselves again). So first of all I confess my ignorance beyond this. As you have rightly recognised, the next main question, which I have already asked myself in the books you mention but only answered very cautiously, is how one could describe the relationship between the 2nd and 1st centuries.

I have gained a little more insight into this in the last three years, because during this time I have reconstructed the Pauline letters as suggested by the witnesses to Markion's collection. Although Hilgenfeld - Zahn - Harnack - Schmid and BeDuhn had already undertaken such reconstructions, the first four of these editors still proceeded from the heresiological model of Markionite editorial abridgement (although the edition of the canonical Pauline epistles first appears before our eyes with Irenaeus, i.e. a good three decades after that of Markion) and therefore offer only deviations, but no continuous text, while BeDuhn offers a largely continuous text of the letters, but only in English translation.

In my reconstruction, I noticed that the two collections (1. the 10-letter collection of Markion; 2. the 14-letter collection from the time of Irenaeus) have strikingly different languages and semantics. Furthermore, it is striking that the three letters Eph, Col and 2Thess, which today are regarded as pseudo-Paulines, differ from the 7 letters found in the 10-letter collection even in the "pre-canonical" version (i.e. as parts of the 10-letter collection) in that they possess a language in many respects that we encounter in the 14-letter collection.

This trace opens a small door into the time before Marcion, perhaps even into the 1st century - hence my comments for you.

The fact that Marcion's collection of 10 letters contains a lexis, semantics, a grammar etc. that is clearly identifiable and different from those of the 14-letter collection shows: 

1. that there was a redaction of this 10-letter collection (one can of course ask whether by Marcion or by an earlier editor, if Marcion had indeed, as Lieu, BeDuhn, Klinghardt, Goldmann, Flemming assume, changed nothing or nothing significant about these letters)

2. that there was a further, later redaction of this collection of 10 letters, when it was expanded into a collection of 14 letters at the time of Irenaeus.

3. here the view into the time before Marcion: that 3 letters were included in the 10-letter collection, which are already characterised by a language that we encounter again in the canonical editing of the 14-letter collection.

4 This means, however, that in his search for Pauline letters or letter material, the editor had not only come across 7 letters (whether already in a collection remains to be investigated), which after the redaction appear uniform in language throughout, while he must have come across a collection of 3 letters that came from a linguistic-religious-cultural milieu that was that of the later canonical redaction. Even after the pre-canonical redaction, the parallels to the later canonical redaction can still be recognised.

5) After the pre-canonical editing of all 10 letters, the 10-letter collection came into the milieu from which the 3 letters originated. In this milieu, the 10-letter collection was expanded into the 14-letter collection and canonically edited into the form that we find today in the canonical New Testament.

A further insight became clear to me when I compiled the "Concordance to the Precanonical and Canonical New Testament (narr.de)":

6. the 10-letter collection has largely the same linguistic features as the pre-canonical Gospel of Marcion's New Testament.

7. the other parts of the canonical collection of the 27 books beyond the 14-letter collection largely share a common canonical language (despite all the individual differences of all their individual writings).

This means that if we want to look back from the 2nd to the 1st century, the following questions will have to be answered: Who is the redactor who presents a single Gospel text and 10 Pauline letters that are demonstrably from one and the same hand?

What is the character of the 3 letters used by this editor? Are they literary fiction or do they go back to older material, possibly to a "Paul"? Since they must have already existed in a collection due to their linguistic similarities, do they represent the older level in comparison to the 7 letters offered by the editor? If this were the case, then the letters now regarded as pseudo-Paulines would be older and closer to Paul than the so-called "genuine" 7 letters. 

Or is it precisely the fact that the 3 letters were already edited as a collection that speaks against their more original character? Since the editor - knowing what an editor is and does - must have known that it was an edited collection of the 3 letters, which he included in his own collection of 10 letters, he obviously saw no problem in using edited texts, editing them himself and still putting them under the label "Paul". 

As far as the source(s) of the 7 letters are concerned, the question of whether the editor used individual letters or a collection cannot be answered just as clearly. The fact that the editor left the three letters together, placed five letters before them and two after, and that he arranged his collection of 10 letters biographically and geographically, just as he arranged the Jesus material biographically and geographically, rather suggests that he had not yet found the seven letters as a collection. For if the 7 letters had been available to him as a collection and if he had also drawn on an older Gospel, then it would be more than coincidental if both older sources (Gospel, 7 letters) had the same organisational structure. What is historically probable is that he possessed epistolary material for the 7 letters, just as he possessed Jesus material, from which he created partial collections for his New Testament, which he structured similarly and which also both reflect his editorial language.

What does this mean for our insight into the 1st century? Especially for your question about the Christian movement and, I would add, its protagonists? In "Christ's Torah" I have already pointed out that the editor also includes elements (such as "bringing fire/conflict") that contradict his own idea. This suggests that there is a previous source for this material, which the editor traces back to the Jesus of his gospel. Similar elements that seem to contradict his idea can also be found in the letters of Paul in the 10-letter collection. Here, too, the editor cites Paul as the source. Can we trust this information? It seems to me, as I have already written, that the editor was not someone who produced pseudonymous fictions - a significant difference to the canonical editors, for whom pseudonymity and fictionality are  characteristic features. That is why we still do not have any letters that scholars attribute to Paul other than the seven that can be found in the 10-letter collection. I would therefore rate the confidence in this editor higher rather than lower.

Who could this editor be if the Gospel and the 10-letter collection were written by his consistently editorial hand?

1) An ultra-conservative answer could be: Paul. Then Paul not only brought a message, but this gospel to the Galatians.

Or, if this is not considered possible,

2. a disciple of Paul, perhaps Luke. Then he would be the author/editor of the gospel and the 10 Pauline letters.

3. an anonymous person (as assumed by BeDuhn, Lieu, Klinghardt ...), who then wrote both parts.

Or, what I consider to be the most likely solution, especially in view of the witnesses of the 2nd century:

4th Markion.