Jason David BeDuhn

First of all, thanks and kudos to the author for doing so much useful work in reconstructing the texts of the Marcionite canon.

I was hoping the results would bring me some clarity in terms of a bright theological line between the Marcionite and the Catholic texts. Unfortunately, the reconstructed texts remain mystifying. The Marcionite Romans, for example, reads as far too Judaic for Marcion, containing much of the chapter 2 material on the justification of those Gentiles who unwittingly obey the Jewish Law, as well as verses from chapter 7 praising the Law as "sacred... just and good". To give an idea of how bizarre this is, in Robert Price's book on Paul he identifies chapter 2 as a Hellenistic Jewish sermon, and chapter 7 as a Catholic gloss. Why on earth would the anti-Law Marcion have accepted such sentiments as original to Paul, the dogged anti-Judaiser?

This makes me wonder whether the texts seen by the heresiologists, from whose work the Marcionite texts are reconstructed, were really Marcionite texts. Did the Marcionites really canonise texts mined with theological bombs which the Catholic heresiologists gleefully detonated to rebut Marcion's interpretation of Paul? Otherwise we have to imagine Marcionites possessed of superhuman capacity for interpretive acrobatics to get around the dangerous statements they sheltered within their canon.

On the other hand, some of the material present in the Catholic texts but omitted in the Marcionite texts makes sense to me as anti-Marcionite interpolation, including the verses which gave Richard Carrier most trouble to explain away in his argument against the existence of Jesus (about which see my review of his 'On the History of Jesus': https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1423364529?book_show_action=false )

But the problem remains that, granting these omissions from Marcion's text, so much remains that is very difficult to reconcile with what we thought we knew of Marcion. The author in his commentary keeps to carefully studied refusal to delve into where these confusing epistolary texts really come from. This is not a fault of the book, but a frustration for the reader: after so much hard work of reconstruction, not much seems to be any clearer.… (more)

First of all, thanks and kudos to the author for doing so much useful work in reconstructing the texts of the Marcionite canon.

I was hoping the results would bring me some clarity in terms of a bright theological line between the Marcionite and the Catholic texts. Unfortunately, the reconstructed texts remain mystifying. The Marcionite Romans, for example, reads as far too Judaic for Marcion, containing much of the chapter 2 material on the justification of those Gentiles who unwittingly obey the Jewish Law, as well as verses from chapter 7 praising the Law as "sacred... just and good". To give an idea of how bizarre this is, in Robert Price's book on Paul he identifies chapter 2 as a Hellenistic Jewish sermon, and chapter 7 as a Catholic gloss. Why on earth would the anti-Law Marcion have accepted such sentiments as original to Paul, the dogged anti-Judaiser?

This makes me wonder whether the texts seen by the heresiologists, from whose work the Marcionite texts are reconstructed, were really Marcionite texts. Did the Marcionites really canonise texts mined with theological bombs which the Catholic heresiologists gleefully detonated to rebut Marcion's interpretation of Paul? Otherwise we have to imagine Marcionites possessed of superhuman capacity for interpretive acrobatics to get around the dangerous statements they sheltered within their canon.

On the other hand, some of the material present in the Catholic texts but omitted in the Marcionite texts makes sense to me as anti-Marcionite interpolation, including the verses which gave Richard Carrier most trouble to explain away in his argument against the existence of Jesus (about which see my review of his 'On the History of Jesus': https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1423364529?book_show_action=false )

But the problem remains that, granting these omissions from Marcion's text, so much remains that is very difficult to reconcile with what we thought we knew of Marcion. The author in his commentary keeps to carefully studied refusal to delve into where these confusing epistolary texts really come from. This is not a fault of the book, but a frustration for the reader: after so much hard work of reconstruction, not much seems to be any clearer.… (more)