Papyrus Egerton 2 / P. Köln 255, The Gospel of Peter and Marcion

Reading the book by Francis Watson, Gospel Writing (Grand Rapids, Cambridge, 2013), and working on the commentary on Marcion's Gospel (and the reconstruction of its text), especially the two passages on the healing of the leper (par. Luke 5:12-4) and the question of  whether one should pay tax to the king (par. Luke 20:20-6), I noticed that the 'unknown gospel', preserved in the fragments of Papyrus Egerton 2/P. Köln 255, displays the same synoptic feature which I have found with regards to the relation between the Gospel of Peter, the canonical gospels and Marcion (see the previous post on this). 

Hence when Francis Watson in his mentioned study states that a ‘comparison of the Markan version with Matthew 8.1-4 and Luke 5.12-16 does not produce any significant findings in relation to GEger [= Papyrus Egerton 2/P. Köln 255]’,[1] a closer look at the nature of what these papyri preserved us, indeed, sheds further light on the relation between our early Christian gospels.

 

 

 

Here follows Wieland Willker's translation and comments:

Fragment 1 Verso

[...] And Jesus said to the lawyers: "Punish every wrongdoer and transgressor, and not me. [...]^* he does, how does he do it?"

And turning to the rulers of the people he said this word: "Search the scriptures, in which you think you have life. These are they, which testify about me. Do not suppose that I have come to accuse you to my father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, in whom you have hoped."

And they said: "We know that God spoke to Moses,but as for you, we do not know, where you are from."

Jesus answered and said to them: "Now is accused your disbelief in those who have been commended by him. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me. For about me he wrote to your fathers [...]"

------^* Possible reconstructions:
"Judge the deeds, how he does, what he does."
"Because an outlaw does not know, how he does, what he does."
"Because it's unexplained, how he does, what he does."
"And see, how he does, what he does."
"Who is condemning, how he does, what he does."

 

Fragment 1 Recto

[...] and taking up stones together to stone him. And the rulers laid their hands upon him to seize him and hand him over to the crowd. And they could not take him because the hour of his arrest had not yet come. But the Lord himself, escaping from their hands, withdrew from them.

And behold, a leper coming to him, says: "Teacher Jesus, while traveling with lepers and eating together with them in the inn, I myself also became a leper.^* If therefore you will, I am clean."

And the Lord said to him: "I will, be clean."

And immediately the leprosy left him. And Jesus said to him: "Go show yourself to the priests and offer concerning the cleansing as Moses commanded and sin no more [...]"

------------
^* (Schmidt:) You look for the lepers and were eating with publicans. Have mercy, I am like them.
The original reconstruction is factually impossible (traveling with lepers), therefore this new one.

 

Fragment 2 Recto

Coming to him, they tested him in an exacting way, saying: "Teacher Jesus, we know that you have come from God, for what you do testifies beyond all the prophets. Therefore tell us, is it lawful to pay to kings the things which benefit their rule? Shall we pay them or not?"

But Jesus, perceiving their purpose and becoming indignant said to them: "Why do you call me teacher with your mouth, not doing what I say? Well did Isaiah^* prophesy concerning you, saying: 'This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men...'"

----
^* Jes 29:13 (NRS): The Lord said:
"Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote, ..."

 

Fragment 2 Verso

(unfortunately this fragment is in such a bad state, that it cannot be sufficiently reconstructed. What follows is first the text which can be reconstructed pretty sure and then some more speculative restaurations.)

"(...) shut up (...) has been subjected uncertainly (...) its weight unweighted?"

And when they where perplexed at the strange question, Jesus, as he walked, stood on the lip of the Jordan river, stretching out his right hand, filled it with (...) and sowed upon the (...). And the (...) water (...) the (...). And (...) before them, he brought forth fruit (...) much (...) for joy (...)

 

(Dodd:) "When a husbandman has enclosed a small seed in a secret place, so that it is invisibly buried, how does its abundance become immeasurable?"

And when they where perplexed at the strange question, Jesus, as he walked, stood still upon the verge of the River Jordan, and stretching out his right hand, he filled it with water and sprinkled it upon the shore. And thereupon the sprinkled water made the ground moist, and it was watered before them and brought forth fruit...

(Schmidt:) "Why is the seed enclosed in the ground, the abundance buried? Hidden for a short time, it will be immeasurable."

And when they where perplexed at the strange question, Jesus, as he walked, stood on the banks of the River Jordan, and stretching out his right hand, he filled it with seed and sowed it upon the ground. And thereupon he poured sufficient water over it. And looking at the ground before them, the fruit appeared...

(Cerfaux:) "(...) enclosed like me, buried, uncertain, and making possible immeasurable abundance?"

And when they where perplexed at the strange question, Jesus, as he walked, stood on the banks of the River Jordan, and stretching out his right hand, he took a fig-tree and planted it in the river. And on the water, the roots spread out and fruit appeared...

(Lietzmann:) And when they where perplexed at the strange question, Jesus, as he walked, stood on the banks of the River Jordan, and stretching out his right hand, he filled it with water and sowed on the ground. And the sprinkled waterpurified(?) the ground. (...) and coming out before them, the fruit appeared.

(Lagrange:) And when they where perplexed at the strange question, Jesus walked at the banks of the River Jordan, and stretching out his right hand, he filled it with sand and sowed seed on the sand. And then he poured running water over it. And it run to seed and coming out before them, the fruit appeared.

Though the fragment cannot be reconstructed sufficiently, the meaning can be found:
A small seed in the ground is hidden and invisible. How does its abundance become immeasurable?
(By growing and bringing fruit.)
To clarify this, Jesus performs a miracle: He walks up to the river Jordan and with the water he gives rise to a spontaneous ripening of fruit. (much, for joy!)Possible parallel from Ezekiel 17:5-8:
17:5 Then he took a seed from the land, placed it in fertile soil; a plant by abundant waters, he set it like a willow twig. 6 It sprouted and became a vine spreading out, but low; its branches turned toward him, its roots remained where it stood. So it became a vine; it brought forth branches, put forth foliage. [...] 8 it was transplanted to good soil by abundant waters, so that it might produce branches and bear fruit and become a noble vine.

Willker does not provide a translation of the very fragmentary fragment 3 - but from the few characters it seems to follow that a parallel text to John 10:30-9 had been written down.


Let us begin our short investigation by first looking at the list of canonical parallels to Papyrus Egerton 2/P. Köln 255 which have partly already been established by Wieland Willker at his fantastic website on Papyrus Egerton 2/P. Köln 255 (to whom I also owe thanks for the provision of the images above):

1.      Debate over Credentials (l. 1-24):

John 5:39, 5:45, 9:29, 5:46-7 (see also John 3:2, 7:27-8, 8:14, 10:25, 12:31)

2.      Attempt to Seize Jesus (l. 25-34)

John 10:31, 8:59, 7:30, 8:20, 10:39 (see also TG 1:9 = Luke 4:30)

3.      The Healing of the Leper (l. 35-47)

Matth. 8:2-4, Mark 1:40-4, Luke 5:12-4, 17:12-9 (only the last part [do not sin anymore]: John 5:14, 8:11)

4.      Debate with False Questioners (l. 50-66)

Matth. 22:15-22, Mark 12:13-7, Luke 20:20-6 (= TG 16), TG 2:46 (see also Matth. 15:7-9, Mark 7:6-7, Luke 6:46, John 3:2)

5.      Miraculous Fruit (l. 67-82)

No clear parallel

6.      Further Violence Against Jesus (l. 89-94)

John 10:30-9

We can take from this list the following:

The opening text of what has been preserved of this unknown gospel (section 1 and 2 of Papyrus Egerton 2/P. Köln 255) has close parallels with John, but with none other of the canonical gospels. There are neither parallels in this section with Marcion’s Gospel. As soon as there are parallels, however, a very interesting observation can be made. Beginning with section 3 of Papyrus Egerton 2/P. Köln 255, – and only in those texts parallel between the unknown Gospel and Marcion’s Gospel do we also find literal parallels between this unknown gospel and the Synoptics. Where Marcion’s text ends, the parallelism among the Synoptics and the unknown gospel breaks off. Similar with section 4 of Papyrus Egerton 2/P. Köln 255. The question of the tribute money is part of Marcion’s Gospel, and again we find literal parallels between the Synoptics and the unknown gospel. Yet, the final section 5 of what is preserved has neither a parallel with Marcion nor do we find parallels with the Synoptics.
We can conclude: Very similar to what I previously have shown with regards to the Gospel of Peter it is also the case with the unknown gospel of Papyrus Egerton 2/P. Köln 255 that the mentioned fragmentary gospels, the Synoptics (and sometimes even John) provide parallel text (often literal parallels) with each other and with Marcion’s Gospeltext, where this exists and is attested for. As soon as Marcion’s text is missing or verses declared as being absent by our early witnesses, the parallelism between the other gospels (canonical and non-canonical) stops, or is reduced to dual parallelisms (as for example between the unknown gospel and John), or we find singular traditions in any of these gospels.

---

[1] F. Watson, Gospel Writing (2013), 322.


In an email, a colleague replied to this post:

Dear Markus, I read your recent post on Papyrus Egerton2 with its fascinating observations. I enclose an early thesis done by a Japanese scholar in Germany. Helmut Koester depended on it heavily in his treatment of the papyrus which led him to believe that it is independent from the known synoptic Gospels. it's primitive character though could support your idea that this could be Marcion's. However, a question came to my mind when I read it for the first time; in the saying:

Coming to him, they tested him in an exacting way, saying: "Teacher Jesus, we know that you have come from God, for what you do testifies beyond all the prophets. Therefore tell us, is it lawful to pay to kings the things which benefit their rule? Shall we pay them or not?"

I noticed that the author strips the saying of its narrative character in the Synoptic tradition (Jesus standing before the public while the Pharisees and Herodians try to entrap him by asking him whether to render the taxes to the Caesar). The story in the synoptic tradition has specific characters (Caesar, Pharisees and Herodians) and a plot that fits perfectly in the controversies of tax-paying and the Temple in Judaea.  in Papyrus Egerton2 Caesar is rendered to "kings..." no mention of the Pharisees and Herodians (unless they were mentioned before "Coming to him" in a lost fragment).  The saying becomes an Apophthegmata leading to a timeless Wisdom saying (what to do with the political authority.. whatever it is "kingS")

This makes me question why would the Egerton2 story would be presumed earlier while a tendency to strip the saying of its Sitz im Leben could be inferred? 

Here my answer to my colleague:

You have picked the right text - which, as you will see, will support the hypothesis that P. Egerton 2 is related to Marcion and, in this instance, a more truthful witness to Marcion than to the Synoptics. While Luke 20:20 is not attested for (hence, we don't know whether Marcion referred to the procurator), it is very interesting that Tertullian, giving us in Adv. Marc. IV 19.7 the information that 'that question about tribute money' he read in Marcion's Gospel and then quotes: 'And there came to him Pharisees, testing him'. Already Jason D. BeDuhn in his new book on The First New Testament. Marcion's Scriptural Canon (Salem, 2013), 180 notes that 'this wording is not found in any witness to Loke or any of the Synoptic parallels', and then adds: 'but cf. Papyrus Egerton 2: "And they, coming to test him, said ..."' Whether or not Luke 20:20 was missing, in Marcion we seem to have a reference to the Pharisees, not the Herodians. So, in Marcion, the saying has a Sitz im Leben, even if it is not as explicit as in the Synoptic tradition (which has the tendency to elaborate on historical details to make their text sound older and more historical than the one by Marcion), while Egerton2 has, indeed stripped the saying off. If you follow my argument - then Marcion seem to have been earlier than Egerton2 (had the Synoptics copied from Egerton2 or from an earlier tradition, Watson's hypothetical Sayings Collection, why would they not have copied the ending of the leper story by Egerton2, but broke off and went their own ways, as soon as Marcion's text had come to an end? If however, Egerton2 is relying on Marcion, the textual parallel between Marcion's Gospel and Egerton2 is explained and the wisdom character of the Apophthegma in Egerton2. As we don't have Marcion's wording of par. Luke 20:21-3, but only Tertullian's witness for par. Luke 20:24-5 Egerton2 may be closer to Marcion than the Synoptics, when Egerton2 states that Jesus has come from God and what he does testifies beyond all the prophets. Both, the coming from God and Jesus' action as surpassing the prophets sound Marcionite.

Review by Günther Röhser on my Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity

Professor Gunther Röhser (New Testament scholar in the protestant Faculty of Bonn University) has published a concise review of my earlier book on Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity in which he states: 'this book deserves unreserved admiration and agreement not only for its overall innovative courage, but also especially for its methodological approach, its question and the many results and detailed observations.' It is also nice to read that he adds the hope that his NT colleagues would draw the consequences from their patristic colleague 'and come to a re-judgement of the Easter tradition in early Christianity' (my trans.). The review is published Theologische Revue 109 (2013): 287-9.

Searching for info about Marcion, I found your blog ...

A very kind reader from the Dominican Republic asked me a few questions which, I thought, might also help others writing to me or reading what I have answered to this:

 

Searching for info about Marcion, I found your blog and I saw many articles about Marcion.

>Check out the latest entries, as I normally post fragments of what I am recently researching, and testing a few topics out. It is nice to have a scholarly discussion before publishing something.

When I read about Marcion and the Early Church, I wonder how many christians know about the historical events and facts of Christianity? People just read the Bible and nothing more.

>This is even true for many scholars. It is astonishing with how little critical understanding scholars in the history of Christianity work, of course, because there is a leading interest behind such reading. Yet, few historians would believe what, for example, many New Testament scholars take for granted. On Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels I will have a new monograph coming out in a few weeks (see blog entry of today).

My concern is: Was the Gospel of Luke rewritten? I heard an article about a book (Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle by Joseph B. Tyson) that says Gospel of Luke was rewritten in Rome around 120 CE. And also the Book of Acts. So Luke and Acts were written by the same person and they say many scholars agree with that.

>The latter is what many scholars today believe, that Luke and Acts were written by the same person. But one only needs to compare the two works, and you will see - often when passages from Luke are parallel to Marcion's Gospel, both language and content differ from Acts, but are rather parallel with the Synoptics. In contrast, when passages of Luke are not present in Marcion, the cohere with Acts, but rarely with the Synoptics. I draw from this and many other indications the conclusion that Marcion is the source for Luke (and the Synoptics) and that Acts has been written by the same person who has enlarged Marcion's Gospel to become Luke's.

My question is, (since I do not know if you follow a Christian religion, in case you do or did) how this historical information of Marcion affected your view on the Bible as an inspired word of God? 

>This is for me an open question. Marcion was an extraordinarily gifted person, I even would call him an inspired writer. He was also diligent, collected Paul's letters, published them. Sat down and wrote, as I think, the very first gospel. Yes, he had developed a provocative theology which set Christianity for the first time as a separate religion, anti-thetical to Judaism. And only in the latter he was criticized by his fellows. If you want to put it in theological terms - God was able to write straight on curved lines.

Judith Lieu reviews my 'Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity and the Making of the New Testament'

Judith Lieu (Cambridge, UK), writes in 'The Enduring Legacy of Pan-Marcionism', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 64 (2013): 557-61 a review article on my 2011 monograph.

Her mostly kind words about the 'relatively slim and yet wide-ranging book' set out the thrust of the first two of my chapters (interestingly, almost none of the reviewers comments on the third chapter on liturgy and rituals). It humbles me that she sees my arguments taking 'up a long-lived thesis, which goes back at least to the Tübingen School of the mid-nineteenth century' (559). Although my thoughts were originally developed without looking towards Baur and others, I cannot deny that I have learned enormously from these earlier debates of the matter.

One of the major thesis of Lieu's reading of my monograph is that 'all this is premised on an assumption of chronology, "before Marcion" and "after Marcion"' (558). This is less than partially true. It is true insofar Marcion appears to be the main figure with whom Christianity as a novel concept begins and, as I had indicated only in the 2011 monograph (Lieu rightly states that 'there is little here about the making of the New Testament as such', 557-8), prior to him no Gospel as a combination of oracles and narratives in written form existed. My assumed chronology (before/after Marcion), however, and the dating of (undatable or hardly datable) texts like 1Peter, Barnabas (and we could add some more) are irrelevant for the thesis of the 2011 monograph. Irrespective of when in the second century they were written, they all display that the topic of Christ's Resurrection exclusively appears in texts which either know of Paul, quote him, or are placed in the Pauline tradition. That Marcion who collected Paul's letters and published them, gave the topic of Christ's Resurrection its boost, is the main thing that the monograph wanted to highlight and which does not seem to be rejected in principle.
Let me, however, also address what 'is much to frustrate those acquainted with the period and its problems' (559). Lieu rightly complaints that the monograph 'rarely acknowledges that nearly every text that he [the author] cites carries with it a host of interpretive difficulties'. It was the price of writing a book for a broader readership, and my (first) attempt to avoid the German footnotes. Hence, I am more than happy to provide more footnotes and discussions in my forthcoming book (see below). Indeed, 'assigning Papias to the 140s ... would be heavily contested' (new arguments will be provided and discussed in the below), and so is my denial (voiced, however, also by von Campenhausen and Koester long before) that 'the term "Gospel" with reference to a written document [has been] used before Marcion' (559; that Marcion was the one who created the label 'Gospel' for a written text is now admitted by Lieu herself in her new book, see J. Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic [Cambridge, 2015], 436: '‘The narrative account of the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus most probably was already referred to as “the Gospel”, although that title was not identified exclusively with a particular text in written form; rather, it was he who so labelled the authentic version that he “restored”. The written text with which he was familiar bore a strong resemblance to canonical Luke, particularly as attested within some surviving textual traditions, but likely it was in several respects shorter.’').
My reading of Tertullian, Against Marcion IV 5 'that Marcion himself claimed that his Gospel had been falsified' is disputed, and Lieu believes that this 'reference is undoubtedly to Marcion's claim to have removed the corruptions imposed on Paul's Gospel' (559). Her reference to Adv. Marc. I 20, however, shows that doubts are appropriate. Tertullian, here, states that Marcionites ('they') claim that 'Marcion had not invented a new [rule], but rather refurbished a rule previously debased', by which, as Tertullian shows, they mean 'the corruptions imposed on Paul's Gospel' (so J. Lieu, 559). This is true, but these are 'corruptions' made by those people who had used Marcion's Gospel, as Tertullian explains in Adv. Marc. IV 4.4, when Tertullian claims that his is the true Gospel, Marcion's the falsified, whereas Marcion held the opposite view (although Marcion always saw the Gospel not as his own, but as that of Paul!). Moreover, Tertullian adds to this in the same passage: 'that when Marcion's [Gospel] has emerged later, ours should be taken to have been false before it had from the truth material, and Marcion's be believed to have suffered hostility from ours before it was even published'.
At the latest here it becomes clear that Lieu has to admit that Marcion (or the Marcionites) had claimed that Marcion's Gospel was 'believed to have suffered hostility' from Tertullian's Gospels, hence Marcion did not only wanted to remove 'corruptions imposed on Paul's Gospel', but particularly on that Gospel which was his own and which has suffered corruptions from those Gospels that Tertullian used (Matthew, Luke ...). One may discard Marcion's claim, but one can hardly interpret Tertullian differently here - if he spoke about Paul's Gospel, how can he say that this Gospel 'has emerged later'. He is, indeed, speaking about Marcion's written Gospel which he believed was published after that of the later canonical Gospels. In contrast, Marcion believed the opposite and stated that his Gospel was written earlier than the others and the later canonical ones have taken material from it, the true one, even bevore 'it was even published'. The taking of material by those who produced the later canonical Gospels, then was the reason that Marcion was forced to publish his own Gospel - and, hence, Tertullian is right in this, that this version was, indeed, later than those others.
For this reason, the Marcionites (as in the Adamantius' dialogue I 5) claimed that the Gospels of Matth., Mark, Luke and John were 'spurious'.  It also indicates that Marcionites like Marcion could insist on both the novelty of the new edict in the nova forma sermonis while also being the conservators of tradition. When Marcion claimed that his Gospel had been falsified, he meant of course, the message of the Gospel that he referred back to Paul. The ambiguity does not arise through the modern interpreters but is given by the complex nature of Marcion's understanding of his Gospel.

Looking at my statement that 'world literature, and that is what has been written with Luke, Acts, Matthew, Mark and John [...] does not grow naturally in fields as far apart as Rome and Jerusalem, Alexandria' (92), I don't feel that I was 'forced' to it 'by the need to explain the complex literary relationships between these without the luxury of the years available to a more conventional hypothesis' (559), rather the opposite seems still true to me: people who date these texts early and indulge in the luxury of decades and voyages are forced to explain how such texts could grow naturally, especially given the fact that none of our extra-gospel literature has preserved a single trace of the Gospel-narratives prior to Marcion (and please date all the disputed texts early: all NT letters, Revelation, 1Clement, Didache, Hermas, Barnabas, Papias - unless you take his authorship of the Johannine passage for granted - ...).
I agree that my study has not taken into account 'theories of "Gospel communities", or of the interplay of oral and written traditions reflected through a variety of multi-faceted redactional lenses' (560). I hope to deal with parts of these topics at least in the forthcoming study, although I am still sceptical if we can detect 'Gospel communities'. My reading of the evidence, so far, is that Gospels are linked to teachers (see the standard reference who amongst the teachers is using which particular Gospel), and only from after the mid-second century do we know of particular Gospels being read in communities (beginning with Justin, Serapion ...).
When the reviewer detects 'a certain myopia driven by its focus on an all-explanatory thesis', only the latter is partially true. I had not set out to give a 'solution to every problem, the answer to the question of the universe', or to chase 'a particular ghost in the shadows ... with almost paranoid insistence' (561). Fortunately, despite much despair and reasons for becoming mentally destable and paranoid, I am far from loosing my rationality and - people who know me more closely will be witnesses that I am passionate, yes, but rarely loose self-criticism or negate self-scepticism. So, neither obsessed by aliens, nor driven by paranoia I would have loved to join the postmodernist reading of early Christian sources where authors disappear, little defined communities appear and a democratic system of equals guided by the Holy Spirit emerges. Yet, the evidence, as I read them, does not allow for such interpretation. When another colleague asked me a few months ago, why I am concentrating on Marcion - the simple answer is, because each time I am looking for a Gospel-writer before him, I end up nowhere, yet, the response he got, point to him being the one who moved Christianity beyond its Jewish identity, providing it with the foundational scriptures, an act, not by somebody, who himself would have been the proto-Christian (a contradiction in itself), but - as I am showing in a forthcoming article in Judaisme antique (Brepols, 2013) - he himself being of Jewish proselyte background. Of course, I entirely agree with Judith Lieu that not only 'the possibility' existed, but that it is fact that 'some were unaware of Marcion, dismissed him as of no consequence, concentrated their interest or anxieties elsewhere, or carried on regardless' (560), yet, because of the centrality that Paul's letters and the Gospel narratives won in the decades after Marcion, and specifically with Irenaeus, 'Christianity' becomes the religion of the New (and also Old) Testament, a religion that conceptualizes itself as being distinct from Judaism (and Paganism), again, an idea - as I will show in another forthcoming monograph - which cannot be found before Marcion.
So 'Pan-Marcionism' for the time after Marcion is not an invention of a paranoid scholar, but a possibility that needs to be reckoned with.
There are minor criticisms of Lieu. For example, she claims that my suggestion that Marcion proclaimed 'one loving God ... revealed by the Lord, the incarnate Love Himself' (116) 'comes more from that scholar's [Harnack's] concluding eulogies than from the early sources which identify Marcion's God as '(the) Good' (561). The latter is correct, while the former not. According to Tertullian Marcion set the antithesis not only of the god of the Law and the God of the new edict, but also that of nunc amor, nunc odium (Adv. Marc. I 16,3), hence of 'love' and 'hate', and Tertullian equates the 'principle and perfect goodness' with 'love' (Adv. Marc. I 23,3) - there is no distinction between 'Goodness' and 'Love' (how could it be?). When she claims that I suggested Paul to have been 'a disciple of Gamaliel I', she omitted that I put in front of this a 'probable', and yet, in the meantime, I would be - together with her - more sceptical about the nature and impact of the so-called 'Synod of Jamnia'. My interpretation of IgnSm. 1 on the physicality of Jesus' flesh is not derived from Kirsopp Lake's Loeb translation alone, but from the fact that Kirsopp Lake translated eis ton kyrion correctly in the context of the apographon in IgnSm. 1-3 (‘Take, touch me and see that I am not an incorporeal demon’). So, my interpretation was not the potential 'consequence of undue haste', but a reflected reading of Kirsopp Lake's sensitive translation.
As any author who's work is read and commented upon, I am grateful for the reviewer's engagement with my monograph and for her many suggestions that she made and which I did not mention here (for example her note on my reading of S. Hall's Melito claiming that I 'fail[] to note that Hall expressly rejects the authenticity of the fragment' [= Melito, frg. 6], yet Hall only states that the fragment 'as it now exists' [p. xvi; see xxx-xxxi] is inauthentic - and major scholars like Otto, Harnack, Bonner and Blank have correctly seen its anti-Marcionite nature, supported by the introduction: 'For writing against Marcion the divinely wise Melito says ...' Hence, there is good ground that Melito may have written a book against Marcion, even if what Anastasius quotes reflects a fourth century version of this text).
Even if one may not follow my arguments, or if one, as asked for by the reviewer 'approach this provocative volume with a proper "hermeneutic of suspicion"' (which I think should be how we should approach anything we come across), it is worth keeping in mind, when she concludes that 'in so doing they [the readers of my monograph] should not neglect the challenge to justify with equal comprehensiveness any alternative narrative that they may offer, or a refusal to attempt to do so' (561).

Just to mention at the end that in due course, the new monograph will be published by Peeters Publishers, Leuven, on Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels:

 

Characteristics of Luke?

For a substantial time, now, I am collecting the characteristics that scholars associate with Luke, to find out whether they give us insights into its author. If, as I now believe, Luke was a broadening of Marcion's Gospel, and Marcion himself has written his text, such characteristics would need to match, somehow, what we know of Marcion.
Today, I came across the following article by Dennis E. Smith,

‘Table Fellowship as a Literary Motif in the Gospel of Luke’, JBL 106 (1987): 613-38.

In its opening, Smith writes:

'Luke, as scholars have often noted, was probably the most literary of all the Gospel writers. That is, he was widely read in literature of the day and made conscious use of structures, forms, and images from popular literature in his writings.' Previous studies have noted the affinity of his writings to history, biography, and romance literature. Other studies have noted how Luke has built his argument and theology around various literary structures and themes such as "possessions" and the idea of the benefactor...'
It is interesting to note that in the discussion about the authorship, nobody has noticed that not only the well known characteristics of its high quality literature points to a conscious author (why would he almost slavishly adhere to a mediocre work like Mark?), as does the affinity to literature, but the mentioned themes such as 'possessions' and 'benefactor' match the profile of the business man and benefactor Marcion who according to Tertullian made an endowment (rather than a donation) of around 200,000 Sesterces to the Roman community.
The list is getting longer.