Marcion Smackdown in Atlanta (SBL)

At the last annual SBL meeting in San Diego, my Swedish colleague Mikael Winninge, who chairs the Formation of Luke and Acts program unit, mentioned the idea to have a joint session with New Testament textual criticism to discuss Marcion’s Evangelion, the “Western Non-Interpolations,” and the transmission of Luke. I thought this was a very good idea, and so put him in contact with the chairs of the NTTC session, and proposed a few potential contributors to such a session, not least Dieter Roth who has just published his monograph on Marcion’s text of the Gospels.

Consider what Judith Lieu says in her review mentioned in the last post:

In the cautious conservatism of its conclusions it is also unlikely to attract the popular attention through publicity and . . . gained by other more assertively daring reconstructions, whose conclusions may be swiftly adopted and used to rewrite the history of the past with as much confidence as have been applied to the more conventional hypotheses of New Testament origins.

So, some of the “other” scholars who are not mentioned by name in Lieu’s review, but have made “more assertively daring reconstructions” of Marcion’s text than Roth (right photo) will be present at the session, e.g., Markus Vinzent (left photo) as will Lieu herself. I expect an interesting and fruitful debate. Followers of this blog who are attending the meeting would not want to miss it. 

Personally I changed my travel plan so that I do not need to head to the airport in panic after Tuesday breakfast. I will stay an extra day and enjoy the best wine saved for the last.

Formation of Luke and Acts; New Testament Textual Criticism
Joint Session With: New Testament Textual Criticism, Formation of Luke and Acts
11/24/2015
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
 
Room: Courtland (Atlanta Conference Level) - Hyatt
This session with the Formation of Luke and Acts Section addresses Marcion’s Evangelion, the “Western Non-Interpolations,” and the transmission of Luke. Patricia Walters, Rockford University, Presiding

• Dieter Roth, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
  Marcion’s Gospel: Reconstructions and Their Implications (30 min)
• Jason BeDuhn, Northern Arizona University
  Marcion’s Evangelion and the Two Source Hypothesis (30 min)
• Ronald van der Bergh, University of Pretoria
  Marcion’s Legacy and the Old Testament Quotations in Codex Bezae’s Luke (30 min)
• Judith Lieu, University of Cambridge
  Marcion’s Gospel and the Question of Theological Tendency (30 min)
• Markus Vinzent, King’s College - London, Respondent (20 min)
• Discussion (10 min)

Judith Lieu on Roth’s Text of Marcion & the Value of Patient Reading

Judith Lieu, whose own book on Marcion was published earlier this year, has a good review of Dieter Roth’s recently published The Text of Marcion’s Gospel (Brill). The whole review is worth reading, but here is the conclusion in which she extols the virtue of patiently listening to even “recalcitrant and often unhelpful” textual witnesses:

Roth concludes his analysis of the sources with a reconstruction of Marcion’s Gospel... Some will feel disappointed by Roth’s resolute refusal to indulge in imaginative reconstruction or speculation, or even to do more than hint at what conclusions he thinks might be drawn regarding the history of Marcion’s Gospel. They would, however, do well also to take note that he makes no claim to recover Marcion’s Gospel as the latter produced it, but only the earliest recoverable form of its text — a mantra now familiar more generally in studies of the New Testament text.

This is a book for specialists: readers will have to be able to follow Roth as he works directly and meticulously through his Greek and Latin sources, avoiding explanation of the implications of variations in word order or tense, and as he discusses the textual history and variants of specific verses. In the cautious conservatism of its conclusions it is also unlikely to attract the popular attention through publicity and blogs [except the really good ones, of course. —Ed.] gained by other more assertively daring reconstructions, whose conclusions may be swiftly adopted and used to rewrite the history of the past with as much confidence as have been applied to the more conventional hypotheses of New Testament origins. Yet in age which favors the rewriting of past master-narratives and embraces imaginative reconstruction, it is important that the call to heed the recalcitrant and often unhelpful witness of the textual sources be heard, and that we be reminded that hearing demands time, close attention, and linguistic skills that are too quickly being lost or dismissed as irrelevant. Few readers of Marginalia may go on to read The Text of Marcion’s Gospel, but hopefully they will recognize and defend the sort of scholarship which it represents. [Read the rest here.]

I have only read the beginning and end of Roth’s book, but it looks like all that Lieu says it is.

Mark, Manuscripts, and Monotheism (Festschrift for Larry Hurtado)

Recently, I had the great privilege to contribute to a Festschrift for my friend and colleague Larry Hurtado, Mark, Manuscripts and Monotheism, edited by two of his outstanding students and friends of mine, Chris Keith and Dieter Roth, and published by T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, just in time for the SBL.

Two years ago, I suggested to Chris that he and Dieter should edit this FS that would give Larry's former students the opportunity to honor their Doktorvater, and there were already three contributions to include by Thomas Kraus (on manuscripts as artifacts), Richard Bauckham (on Christology) and myself (on textual criticism) from the Larry Hurtado day held in Edinburgh in 2011.

Chris and Dieter gladly accepted the task, and in conjunction with the SBL in San Diego in November, we could present the volume to Larry at a nice Brazilian restaurant (see image), where each contributor present said a few words about their essay and what Larry has meant to them as mentor, colleague and friend. Many memories were shared and we had many good laughs (this was the first time I heard Chris tell about this crazy experience from his time as a PhD student in Edinburgh).

Larry was apparently deeply moved and filled with gratitutde, and just recently he has started a blog series to engage with the contributions in the volume, several of which will be very interesting for readers of this blog. So far the following posts have appeared:

• Manuscripts as Artefacts: Kraus on Hurtado
• Sense-Unit Divisions in Ancient NT Manuscripts: Artifacts of Ancient Readers
• Mark’s Christology–Plausibility Factors
• Jesus as God’s Chief Agent in Mark
• Mark and the Emergence of Early Christian “Book Culture”