With permission of the sender, I am posting here a recent email exchange that we had on the question of dating and sequence of oral information and the writing of Marcion's Gospel. Thanks for the question and the permission to post this non-anonymized:
Dear Mr. Professor Dr. Vincent Marcus, sir!
Let me remind you about myself. I am the Orthodox Bishop Oleg Chekrygin. Three years ago I asked you to send me your book on the dating of the gospels. I was happy to receive all three of your books, thank you. To the best of my poor English, I familiarized myself with your works. I must tell you that this is an outstanding study in my opinion. And even revolutionary.
Unfortunately, it is little known in Russia, your books have not been translated into Russian, and the fruits of your research are hushed up by Russian biblical scholars, who remain on the point of view of the early dating of the synoptic gospels by the middle of the first century.
>indeed, it would be nice, if I found somebody who could translate the work into Russian.
Once again, I express my deep gratitude to you for your outstanding work.
However, if I may, I want to ask you some questions.
From my point of view, the synoptic problem cannot be removed by establishing the priority of the Gospel of Marcion over the synoptics.
>see the latest publication on this by Matthias Klinghardt, The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels (Peeters Publishers, 2021) which has a very detailed discussion about the relation between Marcion's Gospel and the synoptics.
The dating of the Markion's Gospel is only known about the time of its appearance in Rome, around 140. The time and place of writing is unknown.
> it is either that the Gospel was written in Sinope (Pontus) or in Rome.
Thus, the synoptic problem is transferred from the synoptics themselves to the presynoptic text of Marcion.
> not precisely. The stations are: Pre-synoptic Gospel of Marcion - then the synoptics and John as reactions to this Gospel - then Marcion's publication of his New Testament, including his preface (Antitheses), his (surely slightly revised Gospel) and 10 Pauline Letters.
It consists, as I understand it, in the fact that when dating the Markion Gospel to the second century, the origin of very many sayings of Jesus and episodes associated with Him have no rational explanation.
> I don't think so (and you give your own explanation below). At the moment I am writing a new book that is attempting to do precisely what you are asking, namely to read the many sayings of Jesus and the narrated episodes in the light of the mid second century, and each time I am doing this with a given narrative, it seems to me that they are better fitting this time rather than the first century.
Some similar sayings and even events can be found in ev. John and Thomas, as earlier monuments, but most of the corps of ev. Marcion is of original origin.
>I don't think that John and Thomas are prior to Marcion's Gospel (the same is held by Klinghardt). Yet, of course, there are several sayings that one cannot find in Marcion's Gospel (and, as we know, there are several sayings which we know of, but which are not in any of our 'canonical' Gospels)
Where historical information on this score could come from in the second century is completely incomprehensible.
>not entirely. Different people have different access to oral traditions. If Marcion has put the same energy, money and networks into collecting oral traditions about Jesus as he did with finding letters of Paul (remember, until today, we only have those letters of Paul that Marcion provided us with. None of the letters that have been added to his collection - like the Pastorals and Hebrews - are, today, regarded as authentic amongst scholars), then he provided us potentially with a very good, and even a rather reliable stock. Whether additional material that others have gathered are like the Pastorals or Hebrews would need to be checked.
The same applies to the utterances of Jesus, although in this case historical losses can be assumed.
>indeed, you give a good example:
Such as the disappearance of the five volumes of the logias of Jesus collected by Papias of Hierapolis - some of the lost logia could presumably enter into ev. Marcion. However, it is suspicious that the early fathers practically did not cite the synoptics: if the logia were known to the authors. Marcion, then other authors should have known about their existence and cited them, as cited logia close to logia from E. John. Perhaps I just missed something or forgot, and have the wrong view on this problem.
>As said above, we do have logia that predate Marcion, we have - though very few - in Paul, we have a few more in other sources, but in none of our sources do we find narratives, especially not a single miracle story, no Easter stories, no stories about Jesus' youth ... These are all post-Marcion stories which, I think, where inspired by him.
On the other hand, be ev. Marcion was written before the 1st Jewish War, and other authors should know and mention about him, but according to my information, there are no such references.
>The same that accounts for the Synoptics and John accounts for Marcion, there is no mention of narratives about Jesus before Marcion came up with his Gospel.
The same is even more true for the description of events - in the second century, this information would simply have nowhere to come from, given the complete absence of eyewitness records or anything like that, even in a scattered form.
>this is, why I think, it needed Marcion to recover those and put them into a biographical and geographial order, just he did with his collection of Paul's letters which he ordered according to time and geography.
And in general, as far as I understand, there was a tradition of oral preservation of logia, which were then collected and written down by someone - but not the events of the Gospel history.
>potentially, as we have neither a collection of logia older than the Gospel of Marcion. All we have are very, very few individual logia, here and there.
I have a rather audacious assumption on this score. Is it possible that the Gospel of Marcion was created by its author as an artificial construct of fictional events in the fabric of surviving rumors and legends that roamed in the early Christian environment in the form of legends to include those logos of Jesus that were available to the author.
>This is a very good assumption. For, if Marcion had a source with an authority, why would he not give the name of this authority when he attributed the letters he found to Paul. Yet - and Tertullian complaints about Marcion that he did not give an author's name to his Gospel, assuming that he should have put his name to his product.
I would like to know your competent opinion on this matter. Perhaps flaws and gaps in my education led me to erroneous assumptions. I would be extremely grateful and grateful to you if you find it possible to answer me and at least briefly criticize and correct my ideas.
With respect and gratitude
Bp. Oleg Chekrygin
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