Marcion saute
One of the major problems for competent professional biblical scholars is the need to go beyond their area of expertise. This is especially visible in the reconstructions of Marcion's character. This is advanced to such an extent that for Harnack Marcion brought to Rome Pauline Corpus - "the light of faith", for Vinzent Marcion is the author of the gospels, for Detering he is the author of Paul's letters. And for everyone, he is a theologian who accidentally managed to build a great alternative structure of Christian congregations.
Marcion is none of these people.
Marcion was an outstanding leader. It's hard to make a complaint about this. To discredit him, he was made a theologian - a heretic.
Attributing some theology to him, based on hostile propaganda, is a counterproductive action. It is like a reconstruction of Osip Mandelstam's poetry based on reports from the Lubyanka interrogations.
Marcion as a leader - his theology is market, competition and success. It's a matter of responsibility for the project and for own people. Without this attitude he would not have achieved success.
Marcion's theological views are the creation of publicists financed by his enemies - other unknown leaders who were threatened by his activities.
Marcion took the best products existing on the market and they became the basis for the content of its offer and training system.
He built his network of congregations using NT version 1.0. Competitors began to criticize him after the NT 2.0 version was released. Marcion's structure, like the Orotdoks, used the entire early Christian literature, which, if Larry Hurtado is to be believed, consisted of one-third of the LXX, one-third of the NT writings, and one-third of the Apocrypha. The role of NT in this period was growing but not dominant. The fact that we do not know of any "specific manuscripts" of Marcion shows that his structure offered the same as the competing Orthodox. What mattered was the effectiveness in building and developing the structure. It was a real field of competition.
There was no conflict during Marcion's lifetime. The canonical Gospels are not anti-Marcian. They were created as a consequence of the success of the first one. Publisher, as a responsible person, did not care about any conflicts among the leaders, he just did his job. With his team of ghost writers and redactors.
Anti-marcion was only the propaganda of those who were looking for every possible reason to attack Marcion.
It quickly turned out that Marcion organization was a threat to local, sluggish, poorly managed structures. He was able to operate on a large area and financial development from current revenues.
Marcion is not unique. There are plenty of examples of Christian leaders creating great works and enterprises outside the structures of large churches. In Catholicism, such a leader was Marcial Maciel Degollado. It is enough to look at his designs of the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi to be able to make a proper reconstruction of Marcion.
One of the major problems for competent professional biblical scholars is the need to go beyond their area of expertise. This is especially visible in the reconstructions of Marcion's character. This is advanced to such an extent that for Harnack Marcion brought to Rome Pauline Corpus - "the light of faith", for Vinzent Marcion is the author of the gospels, for Detering he is the author of Paul's letters. And for everyone, he is a theologian who accidentally managed to build a great alternative structure of Christian congregations.
Marcion is none of these people.
Marcion was an outstanding leader. It's hard to make a complaint about this. To discredit him, he was made a theologian - a heretic.
Attributing some theology to him, based on hostile propaganda, is a counterproductive action. It is like a reconstruction of Osip Mandelstam's poetry based on reports from the Lubyanka interrogations.
Marcion as a leader - his theology is market, competition and success. It's a matter of responsibility for the project and for own people. Without this attitude he would not have achieved success.
Marcion's theological views are the creation of publicists financed by his enemies - other unknown leaders who were threatened by his activities.
Marcion took the best products existing on the market and they became the basis for the content of its offer and training system.
He built his network of congregations using NT version 1.0. Competitors began to criticize him after the NT 2.0 version was released. Marcion's structure, like the Orotdoks, used the entire early Christian literature, which, if Larry Hurtado is to be believed, consisted of one-third of the LXX, one-third of the NT writings, and one-third of the Apocrypha. The role of NT in this period was growing but not dominant. The fact that we do not know of any "specific manuscripts" of Marcion shows that his structure offered the same as the competing Orthodox. What mattered was the effectiveness in building and developing the structure. It was a real field of competition.
There was no conflict during Marcion's lifetime. The canonical Gospels are not anti-Marcian. They were created as a consequence of the success of the first one. Publisher, as a responsible person, did not care about any conflicts among the leaders, he just did his job. With his team of ghost writers and redactors.
Anti-marcion was only the propaganda of those who were looking for every possible reason to attack Marcion.
It quickly turned out that Marcion organization was a threat to local, sluggish, poorly managed structures. He was able to operate on a large area and financial development from current revenues.
Marcion is not unique. There are plenty of examples of Christian leaders creating great works and enterprises outside the structures of large churches. In Catholicism, such a leader was Marcial Maciel Degollado. It is enough to look at his designs of the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi to be able to make a proper reconstruction of Marcion.
Statistics: Posted by JarekS — Tue Apr 09, 2024 9:00 pm