Markus Vinzent's Blog

Wednesday 12 February 2014

Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels (Studia Patristica Supplements 2) has been published

http://www.peeters-leuven.be/boekoverz.asp?nr=9383

Today, a large parcels with the author's copies have arrived at my desk - and I am glad to announce that the books is now available in bookshops and online shops.

The book opens with the following lines: 'Out of "decent respect for the opinion of others", my monograph Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity (2011), and its then preliminary hypothesis of the Making of the New Testament (a lately added subtitle), put me "under the obligation to do more"' (a quote from William R. Farmer, 1977), and I add: 'Neither then nor now do I intend to provide "the solution to every problem", "the answer to the question of the universe" or try to chase "a particular ghost in the shadows ... with almost paranoid insistence"', but all I am trying to do is 'to shed some more rational liht on a still dark period of the beginnings of Christianity'.
I have just learned that Matthias Klinghardt (Dresden) is going to present a two volume edition (with introduction) of Marcion's Gospel where he has come to one same conclusion (although there are still nuances and differences in detail) that this Gospel is the oldest of its kind and the inspiration and source for other gospels, especially the later canonical ones which have been directly dependent on this one.
Unfortunately I have got to know his manuscript (which is not published yet) to late to engage with it in this book, but it is comforting that two different minds have independently come to very similar conclusions.
Looking forward to his and other's critical comments - as the learning journey is always only a start.