Jorge Guerra Pires will be producing occasional translations of my blog articles in Portuguese. So if that’s your primary language or you know anyone who is, bookmark his Medium site “Mente Ateísta” and follow or search his work to catch more. He writes his own thoughts on many subjects in atheist philosophy there. But his first translation of my work is of What’s the Harm: Why Religious Belief Is Always Bad, now available in Portuguese as Onde está o dano? Por que a crença religiosa é sempre nociva. You can add comments there with recommendations of other articles you’d like to see done and he’ll consider them.
Note to all: I generally authorize anyone to translate articles on my blog in any language as long as you credit me as the author and link to the original work, and do not sell it for profit or paywall it (it must be as free to all to access and read as the original article). I will also promote it if you point me to it and I don’t worry you’re a Russian or Chinese operative or something trying to build link credibility for some scam (yes, that’s a thing, and has happened). Pretty much like Pirro here, and González for Spanish.
Discover more from Richard Carrier Blogs
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Welcome, Portuguese-speaking readers!
Benvindo aos leitores de língua portuguesa!
Suggestion: if you add your license as CC BY 4.0, it solves the issues. You can find another CC BY license. Those licenses make it clear that you do not require permission to reuse.
Fair suggestion. I just don’t want to commit to any specific legal regime that may get corrupted under judicial rulings into something I am not stating. So I’m just stating my own terms as they are. Which are public record now. So essentially, this is my license.
You recommended a book by Robin Lane Fox in one of your articles and I ended up reading another one: The Anauthorized Version of the Bible. His views are even more conservative than Bart Ehrman’s. He not only thinks that the beloved disciple is not fictitious but he wrote the gospel of John and is a witness to the empty tomb belief (even Bart Ehrman and the Jesus Seminar belive it was invented by Mark). The detail the author of John says was witnessed by the beloved disciple is obviously fictitious: Jesus is pierced by a spear because to the author Jesus is the lamb of God and Exodus 12 says that the passover lamb’s bones shouldn’t be broken. Theological fiction inspired from passages out of context from the Hebrew Bible. The authors of the NT read the Hebrew Bible with Jesus glasses.
Indeed, I don’t recommend his other books for a reason. Pagans & Christians is an important background survey. I’ve not found any of his other work recommendable or useful.
Dear Dr. Carrier,
I read your 2024 review of David Trobisch’s and Markus Vinzent’s books pushing a lot of the New Testament books into the 2nd century. You dismissed that theory and said they didn’t present the evidence needed to support that theory. I recently got finished reading Vinzent’s 2024 book Christ’s Torah, and it elaborates more thoroughly on the internal textual evidence compared to the book you reviewed, while still presenting in the first part of the book important context on leading figures in 2nd century Christianity that supports his main argument of Marcion’s gospel being the gospel that our four canonical gospel authors plagiarized. His work builds on the work of another well known German scholar, Matthias Klinghardt, who wrote a very comprehensive book in 2021 on this problem, The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels, which is over 1400 pages long and deals extensively with the textual evidence to support the Marcionite priority hypothesis.
I find Vinzent’s 2024 book to be very compelling, however I noted a weakness in it: Vinzent supposes Marcion got the material to write his book from some kind of passed down oral or written tradition, without elaborating on the specifics of that transmission, and he generally goes too far, I would say, in “rehabilitating” Marcion, and assuming, for instance, that he wouldn’t fabricate a story from whole cloth (he doesn’t present evidence as far as I can tell to support his case). See for eg pg. 107, where Vinzent writes,
“The fact that Marcion refrained from attaching his own name to the Gospel more likely stems from that fact that he did not want to and could not attribute the contents gathered in it to himself or any other specific author. He must have believed that this text was no more than a compendium of traditions that he had carefully collected and collated, not unlike the Pauline Epistles” and “Marcion had no problem to refer to a specific author where his sources pointed to one. However, things obviously stood differently when it came to the Gospel. If he had taken the material that formed the basis for *Ev from an authored source, why should he remain silent about its author or about an anonymous text, as opposed to naming Paul as author of the Epistles? We are, thus, forced to conclude that the Gospel was based on anonymous traditions and, perhaps, on oral testimonies. Marcion certainly did not see himself as the author of the Gospel but rather its editor, at most.”
Not withstanding this somewhat spurious argument, I think Vinzent’s main thesis about the four gospels holds up well in light of the arguments he presents in the first and second parts of the book, and I think it is worth seriously considering.
My main question though is this: what kind of book do you think Marcion was writing? I know you say about Mark that he was writing an allegory to appeal to the less educated, which the other authors copied. Based on your knowledge now (and perhaps after reading the 2024 book I recommended), do you think we can say the same about Marcion’s gospel that we said about Mark’s (that the historicization was a literary innovation for evangelical purposes)? I don’t see why not, but I just wanted to know if you have any thought about this. Thanks.
Note I don’t dismiss these theories; I give reasons why they are unlikely. Whole articles worth.
As to your specific question:
I assume you mean the Gospel (Marcion published an entire anthology, mostly of Epistles).
On my model (which is the mainstream consensus now) Marcion was publishing propaganda and didn’t write his Gospel but redacted someone else’s (canonical Luke-Acts), who in turn was writing propaganda to “fix” previous propaganda of Matthew and Mark, and Matthew was “fixing” the propaganda of Mark.
So the question is rather what kind of book do I think Mark was writing. The answer is the mainstream one voiced by numerous authors now from Burridge to Walsh: a literary myth that conveys the author’s teachings (doctrines, advice, mores, and opinions) in the form of chreiai, collections of emulative, episodic, fictional tales that communicate values (see OHJ, index). Exactly as Mark has Jesus explain in Mark 4, and as Plutarch explains for all religious mythography and hagiography of the era in On Isis and Osiris, and as is pretty standardly understood across all global anthropology as the function of myths and folktales.
Mark did this by following the actual methods taught in schools of the time to do exactly this, reifying the letters of Paul, and supervening the popular myths he believed his cult had to outdo and replace (not just Homeric and Roman, but also Biblical, making Jesus the superior replacement for mythical heroes like Moses and Elijah). See Mark’s Use of Paul’s Epistles, Why Did Mark Invent an Empty Tomb?, and Like, Can You Rebel Against Rome with Only Two Swords?, with many more examples (and cited scholarship) in OHJ, chapter ten.
So, yes, Marcion is doing the same thing Mark did, then Matthew did, then Luke did, then John did. He chose to prefer his own edit of Luke, but he did not write it. The evidence is clear that he only removed parts and made minor changes elsewhere. He did not substantially add a single thing. So he was not a composer or an author. He was an editor, retooling something someone else wrote, to coopt it to serve his revised teachings. He didn’t even add his teachings (e.g. he put no demiurge material at all in any of the Epistles he included or his Gospel, which indicates he wrote none of these books; he is coopting and interpreting them).
Dear Dr. Carrier,
Thanks for the response. The only reason this theory is viable in my opinion is that Klinghardt shows convincingly that the editorial direction is actually Marcion’s gospel then Luke, not the other way around. I predict this theory will find more acceptance as time goes on, but regardless, if we momentarily assume the hypothesis to be true, do you see any reason to think Marcion couldn’t have done what Mark is assumed to have done, namely, to use a combination of Paul’s letters, the Hebrew Bible, Greek literature of various genres, and his own imagination to write his gospel? My only qualm is this leaves a wide gap in our understanding of the first hundred years of Christianity that might not be possible to fill in given the lack of sources (other than Paul), but that isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a reason to dismiss the idea in my opinion. On the other hand, an oral/written tradition would be more likely to come about if there was a historical person to mythologize about, in my opinion. Otherwise, an unknown person could’ve historicized Jesus at some point and Marcion could’ve used his work or the resultant tradition.
I disagree.
The evidence is overwhelmingly the other direction.
First, that requires you to assume Marcion didn’t write the letters, which puts you on the wrong side of most Marcion priority advocates.
If we assume he forged them, then we acquire all the problems their critics keep pointing out: they are contradictory and don’t actually serve Marcion’s doctrines well. Forgers don’t do that.
And that’s why we know he didn’t do what you suggest: whoever wrote Luke is deliberately trying to undermine the letters of Paul by rewriting the entire chronology and sequence of events they promote. Why would Marcion do that? Either he would just declare the letters forged and publish his Gospel refutation of them; or he would make his Gospel agree with them, not contradict them repeatedly.
This is the problem every scholar is stumbling over. Just because we don’t have the data we need does not warrant stumping for any theory of it we want. Rather, we need to be minimizing our claims, not maximizing them. We need to stick to what we can actually prove and not over-speculate on which specific sequence of events fills the rest in. Ignorance must be stated and conceded and integrated, not turned into evidence for fabricated knowledge.
But all that understood, yes, it is “logically possible” for a Marcionite priority thesis to be true and “logically possible” that Marcion was building on some highly signal-distorted (by then ancient) oral lore about some guy named Jesus who got himself killed in the run up to war, but (1) even true, that tells us nothing, because we have no access to any data that can demarcate what is true or false about Jesus and (2) “logical possibility” is not probability (that’s the fallacy of possibiliter ergo probabiliter). Just because it’s possible does not warrant our believing it or even thinking it has any appreciable probability at all.
What is more likely by that point is that Christians were worshiping a cosmic revealer and Marcion converted him into an Earthly man to carry the allegory exactly as Mark more likely did, as was typical for all savior cults of the era and thus entirely expected for this one.
That’s just on prior probability given all background data. “But we lack specific data here, therefore we get to say something else happened” is simply logically invalid reasoning. In the absence of particular evidence, priors dictate. And that’s that. That is a universal rule of epistemology across all knowledge fields.
Thank you for the valuable insights Dr. I didn’t really consider the incompatibility of Marcion’s gospel with Paul’s theology, I’ll look more into it.
Thank you again for taking the time to respond.
Indeed, just a short list:
Paul functionally assigns Jesus as the Creator not a separate bumbling Demiurge, exactly the opposite of Marcion, and routinely praises Yahweh as the good and divine genius Jesus represents and serves, also exactly the opposite of Marcion;
Paul credits material evils to the rebellion of Satan and his demonic agents, not the Creator/Demiurge/Yahweh’s folly as Marcion did;
Paul accepted marriage and set rules for it, only preferring rather than commanding celibacy like Marcion, and Paul thought the old covenant was still worthy but just needless and excessive and too difficult, whereas Marcion condemned it as villainous;
Indeed, Paul shies away from ever saying Jews should abandon Torah law, but only explicitly says Gentiles don’t need to adopt it, and begs off anyone claiming he said more than that. The idea that even Jews should abandon it starts with Hebrews, likely written by a Pauline companion shortly after his death, yet Marcion didn’t include that letter, despite it being more in line with his views.
Luke’s narrative establishes the resurrection of the flesh, exactly the opposite of what Marcion preached (he was a pneumaticist like Paul; Luke is trying to refute that), and even Marcion’s meddling with the text didn’t fix this, whereas had he written it, the story would totally vindicate his position, not cast it into doubt. It’s evident he is trying to fix an already existing text, not compose the text wholesale.
Similarly, deleting the Nativity is an easy way to edit an existing text, but fails to establish Marcion’s possessionist incarnation—had he written Luke, he’d have started with his own Nativity or equivalent, establishing his version of the incarnation.
And so on.
Other problems include the fact that a lot of what people think Marcion taught he didn’t: they are lies told by his enemies. This has been pointed out several times in recent publications (I cover an important example in chapter seven of Obsolete Paradigm, with bibliography). Supposed Marcionite Docetism is one of them. Even some of the things I listed above could also be false. But not likely all of them or even a majority of them.
*(Other than Paul and probably 1 Clement and some other letters).
Sorry, the thread is lost here. Other than them in respect to what?
Sorry, this is the full context *…but regardless, if we momentarily assume the hypothesis to be true, do you see any reason to think Marcion couldn’t have done what Mark is assumed to have done, namely, to use a combination of Paul’s letters, the Hebrew Bible, Greek literature of various genres, and his own imagination to write his gospel? My only qualm is this leaves a wide gap in our understanding of the first hundred years of Christianity that might not be possible to fill in given the lack of sources (Other than Paul and probably 1 Clement and some other letters) but that isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a reason to dismiss the idea in my opinion.
That sounds right as to method, though you had already included Paul (“Paul’s letters”) so I was extra confused.
Of course I do think 1 Clement and Hebrews are pre-war and thus pre-Marcion (and 1 Clement references Paul while Hebrews obviously builds on Paul’s thought rather than the other way around), but Marcionite Prioritists might disagree with that as well.
But either way, no, that by itself has no effect on your point.
Apologies if this is off-topic, but I was wondering if you’d heard the unfortunate news that Joe Schmid of Majesty of Reason has apparently lost his mind and seriously converted to Catholicism. He even unironically cites things like Catholic miracle stories and the Fine Tuning Argument. Yeah. Disappointing. Guess it goes to show that even intelligent minds can have failure modes. Alex O’Connor is also seriously exploring Advaita Vedanta. Not sure how to feel about that.
I had heard. But I am not surprised. He had been hinting at his nascent Christianity for years. He was never an atheist philosopher. He just published critiques of particular theistic arguments.
The only surprise for me was his reasons, which were full-on bonkers. The incongruity between his astute critical mind in philosophy and his bumpkin reasons for becoming an enthusiastic Christian is stark. No critical thought there at all.
Which leads one to wonder what the “real” motivations were, which are usually emotional. One needs a reason to suppress one’s oft-demonstrated critical thinking and go gaga for a cult. And based on every other example of joining a cult, usually the convert is the last person to be aware of what that reason is.
It could be as simple as money, as cynical as that sounds. He’s already got appearances on Pints With Aquinas lined up and is probably set to become part of the Catholic Answers Apologist Circuit for life. An intelligent “atheist convert” is an absolute goldmine for these people. I can assure you that back in the day, such “qualifications” would have been extremely appealing and reassuring to my Catholic self.
That’s a pretty extreme cynical stance for him to occupy. I know we can’t rule it out. But in my experience it’s the least frequent explanation that ends up being true. Self-deluding emotivism is far more common than sociopathic opportunism.