Together with a non-specialist, I am working towards a New Testament introduction for dummies (highly appreciated sort of non-academics!)
Here a first go - please let me know, if this is the right level of conversation:
B: It all
sounds very exciting, exceedingly complex, and evidently intellectually and
spiritually dynamic. A constant to and fro, it would seem, though evidently
more competitive (between Marcion and the 'canonical party') than
collaborative.
M: In
truth, both: collaborative and competitive. Nothing extraordinary in that.
Communication among academics has changed little since antiquity. They did then
what we do now, learn from one another and attempt to make sense of the
complexities.
B: The
question for me is, what criteria governed the reworkings? Were they undertaken
in close connection with trustworthy testimonies? Were they arbitrary, naïvely
fanciful, or shrewdly devised?
M: Excellent
questions. If I see things correctly, the revisions, much as today, tended to
be conservative: only what seemed mistaken or imprecise was amended, and always
in contact with what one held to be reliable testimony. Even fictive narratives
(genre permitting, such as in the Acta literature or apocalyptic works) sought
to remain within a tradition. The naïve ones are rare; calculating, deliberate
alterations are more apt, often driven by purpose.
B: A
distinguishing criterion seems to have been the attitude towards the Torah,
which Marcion sought to exclude, while others strove to retain it at all costs.
M: This is
a sensitive point, yet Marcion is no outlier here. Torah exegesis and even the
development of new writings were commonplace in Jewish scholarly circles. The
Jewish "Bible" was not yet a closed canon. Particularly the category
of the "Writings," that third section of the Jewish Bible beyond
Torah and Prophets, remained open.
We also have authors such as Philo of
Alexandria, who interprets the Torah with great freedom, or Josephus, who in
his Jewish Antiquities rewrites the entire Jewish scripture for a
Hebrew-speaking and later also Greek audience. Many figures whom we designate
as "Christian" (Ptolemaeus, Justin, and others) wrestle with which
commands of the Torah remain binding, which are divine, Mosaic, or manmade, especially
in light of the writings Marcion assembled.
No one insisted on retaining the Torah "at
all costs", rather, it was maintained with considerable abridgement and
qualification. Certainly, Marcion represents an extreme within this spectrum,
viewing the Torah and the Prophets as wholly obsolete, and reinterpreting the
Gospel and ten Pauline letters as Christ's new Torah, not as part of the third
division of the Jewish scriptures, but as something altogether new.
B: But why
multiply one Gospel into four? That seems to me to weaken rather than
strengthen the case.
M: The
first redactions of the single Gospel appear to have been uncoordinated, more
reflective of the diversity of opinion among teachers of the time. All four
canonical Gospels not only echo Marcion's text verbally and theologically, but
also diverge from it, sometimes sharply.
In the very way they made use of Marcion's
Gospel, so too did they utilise the Gospels developing alongside their own. The
academic world then was no larger or smaller than now. They knew of one
another, paid attention, copied and altered one another. This is no sign of
weakness; it is the very nature of open scholarly discourse.
B: Perhaps
it is best explained by positing multiple versions of Jesus' life, teaching,
and death in circulation?
M: Perhaps,
but not necessarily. The literary proximity and often-parallel structure of the
five Gospels rather argues against it. Yet it seems that the various authors
sought further information, added it when found, removed less fitting material,
and restructured their texts.
B: You also
mentioned Tatian, who compiled a single Gospel, presumably because he sensed
that four versions were too vulnerable?
M: I would
not leap to a polemical interpretation. Up to and even beyond Irenaeus, Gospel
production appears to have followed the academic norms mentioned above.
Teachers continued to produce Gospels: that of Mary, of Peter, and many more.
When Bishop Serapion, around Irenaeus' time, encountered the Gospel of Peter in
a congregation, he took no offence at its use, until he was alerted to
controversies about it, whereupon he became critical.
That Tatian fused the five Gospels likely
relates to the enduring influence of Marcion's Gospel within his New Testament,
prompting Tatian to make a singular one of his own, as others may have
attempted, as the Gospel of Peter fragment suggests.
B: Irenaeus,
at any rate, comes close to recommending the modern canon.
M: Quite
so. And just as the man who calls in the fire brigade may well have lit the
blaze, so Irenaeus, with his propaganda tract, is likely the architect of the
second canonical redaction, just as his teacher Polycarp may have stood behind
the first canonisation of the Pauline letters.
B: If there
was no "Luke," and Acts was not written by the same hand as the
Gospel, then the linkage must be redactional, must it not?
M: Indeed.
The Gospel of Luke, save for the additions and changes, is identical with
Marcion's. The redactors adapted or composed Acts, furnishing it with a preface
matching the one they appended to the Gospel in its revised form. The
linguistic proximity of Luke and Acts is thus redactional, a feat still
prompting scholars to treat the two as a unified work. In that sense, the
redactors did their job well.
B: Finally,
there is the "truth-question," which one might answer: it is of no
consequence what historical-critical analysis may reveal; what was ultimately
canonised is, by the Holy Spirit's inspiration, of unassailable authority.
This answer borrows the philosophical
distinction between genesis and validity, only to transmute its meaning and
apply it theologically. Yet in philosophy, this notion insists that
historically contingent facts (a posteriori truths) cannot determine the
validity of universally binding rational truths (a priori). The Pythagorean
theorem is not true because Euclid discovered it in 300 BC; it is valid by
virtue of pure reason, quite independently of its genesis.
To transfer this principle to theology is a
daring methodological leap, a Salto mortale. Canonisation is not grounded in a
priori insight, but rather constitutes a historical process of
opinion-formation, even if one believes the Spirit guided it. Such guidance can
never be proved a priori, only believed a posteriori, an act of human decision.
M: Faith,
as Tertullian first expressed it, may entail such paradoxes: "What has
Athens to do with Jerusalem?" Later: credo quia absurdum. To
believe may be to perform one death-defying leap after another in the circus
tent, a voluntary surrender. History is of little help here. For Irenaeus and
Tertullian, the "canon of truth" outranks Scripture itself, though
they argue with their opponents over which Scriptures are older. But that is
not the point. The Holy Spirit in theology has no birth, no death, no age. It
is a breath, and breath, as we know, cannot be pinned down.
B: So is
the historical-critical method but a meaningless game of facts, I am not of the
same opinion. I regard canonisation as fallible, even if the Spirit did assist.
I conceive the relationship between God and humanity as dialogical, in which
God allows errors, works with our limitations creatively, patiently,
mercifully. This does not imply that all aspects of canonisation are wrong.
M: Indeed, the moment we add the supra-factual
to the factual, be it breath, be it God, we change a critical method into one
marked by indeterminacy, for we have introduced the incalculable into the
equation.
B: But suppose you could demonstrate that
certain redactional moves violated the historical truth of Jesus' teaching or
Paul's, or even his Spirit, perhaps for reasons of power. Why should one not
name and correct them?
M: We are far from that. We do not yet know
what the "historical truth of Jesus’ teaching and life (or Paul’s)"
is, nor what aligns with or contradicts his Spirit. We must first search for
the guiding interests reflected in the texts we possess or reconstruct.
B: Fundamentalists and ideologues may well
raise the alarm, but why? What sort of lifeless, undialogical, authoritarian,
at best paternalistic image of God is that?
M: Thus the need for critical—also
historical-critical—work. It must be anti-ideological and self-critical.
