A Discussion on Marcion

The Heretic Who Made Christianity’s First Bible
17th July 2022 | Genetically Modified Skeptic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A71Wys_6VqY

4:58 "appropriation of the temple tithe"

In fact, the Catholic Church has taught that tithing to the clergy is normally an obligation in any place (usually old diocese) where the Church claims this from one.

While the present day Church tax to the Catholic Church in Sweden is 1% of the income, it was an exact tithe, that is 10 %, at the end of the Middle Ages.

Typically (West Coast and Scania not being Swedish back than) it was divided like this.
Small taxes, like milk tithe or honey and wax tithe or so on, all went to the parish priest.
The main tax, that is the cereals' tithe, was divided up into different parts:
1/3 to the parish priest
2/3 further subdivided 1/3 the bishop, 1/3 the Church, 1/3 the poor.

The part of "the church" would typically include maintaining of buildings and providing school.

This means that close on 4/9 of the tithe would directly profit the kind of works now dealt with by communal taxation, and the other 5/9 to men who had not just a high responsibility, but also a duty of personal magnificence and for that part some degree of not just Christian but also social guidance of the faithful when in difficult situations. So, part of those 5/9 too would go to purposes for which we now pay social assistants (like both signing the dole and guiding your search of employment would go here).

So, no, it's not an appropriation, they are right in principle, it's just not they who should be getting either tithes or souls ... not much to do about that right now ...

8:23 sth "not a single bishop"

That's Protestant biassed scholarship, if you meant there wasn't one.
In the other case, you are describing an early version of the Cardinals.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

A bit before 20:00 ... Tatian "wrote his own Gospel"

I think it would be more accurate to state, he made a kind of wiki out of the existing Gospels, his work is at least historically known as Tatian's Gospel harmony, and it is the source for Anglo-Saxon poem Crist and Old Saxon poem Heliand.

Ian Mills

Most scholars publishing on the Diatessaron today disagree (see Crawford, Baker, Watson, Zola, or Mills [that's me!]). Tatian creatively rewrote his source materials. But there are a few folks (Hill, Bird, Bockmuehl) writing on canon formation (from a pretty conservative perspective) who argue that it was a kind of scholarly tool (as you described). Both sides agree, however, that the studies which related Tatian's work to the Heliand et al. is out of date and wrong.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ian Mills OK, Tatian c. 120 – c. 180 AD*
Heliand - first half of the 9th century.

Crist I - Unknown, possibly around 800
Crist II - Cynewulf - He presumably flourished in the 9th century, with possible dates extending into the late 8th and early 10th centuries.
Christ III - no date for poem as such, or if it was a rounding off for the other two, term ante quem is therefore the latest possible date for the Exeter book, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD.

Crist III involves apocalyptic material, certainly not the ending of Diatessoron (if I may presume so). But it could in theory draw on Matthew 24 etc (as per Diatesseron) as well as parables.

Is Crist I - III simply too incomplete to be tied to any outline of a Gospel or Gospel harmony?

Because, chronologically*, the possibility stands.

For Heliand, the wikipedians still mention : "The poem is based not directly on the New Testament, but on the pseudo-Tatian's Gospel harmony, and it demonstrates the author's acquaintance with the commentaries of Alcuin, Bede, and Rabanus Maurus." - Which another wikipedian followed up by "citation needed" ... so, what are the older scholarship supporting Heliand based on Tatian, and what has changed since the then status questionis?

* note

Chronology and existence of Exeter book and the relevance of Cynewulf for - at least! - Crist II were checked on wikipedia. They are a free encyclopedia, but like attribution very much.

Ian Mills

@Hans-Georg Lundahl The connection between Heliand (et al.) and Tatian based on an older method of Diatessaronic studies, most famously represented by William Petersen's big book, _Tatian's Diatessaron_. In a series of articles and his book on the Latin harmony tradition Ulrich Schmid effectively dismantled this approach. It has few, if any, defenders today who work on the Diatessaron (with the partial exception of James Barker). It is, however, still employed by NT scholars who are 20-ish years out of date on Diatessaron scholarship.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ian Mills OK, what exactly in Diatesseronic scholarship (as done today) prevents a Diatesseronic model for Heliand?

Specifically, what insight?

Because, if it is not an insight, Ulrich Schmid could have been dead wrong and Diatesseronic studies could have been going down since his time, at least on this side of the issue.

If it's just methodology, like "some other Gospel harmony also could have served" that would mean, not "Heliand did not have Diatesseron for model" but only "we don't know the model was Diatesseron, we can't count Heliand as evidence of it being known that widely" - fine. But it doesn't prove alien authorship to the model than Tatian's.

If it's St. Augustine wrote a Gospel Harmony and was clearly more widely known in 8th C. Latin Christendom, fine, one conclusion could be "St. Augustine's Gospel harmony is more likely than Tatian's as a model" - I'd be perfectly fine with that too. It doesn't exclude Tatian, it only makes a possibly earlier overlooked (was he?) Augustine of Hippo an even likelier candidate. Or, Heliand poet could have composed his own Gospel harmony too.

Are there significant differences between Tatian's harmony (which I haven't read) and St. Augustine's (which I looked at) and where would Heliand fall on these issues? T, A or neither?

Ian Mills

@Hans-Georg Lundahl you can read the scholarship yourself. For a great starting place, read Schmid's chapter in Ehrman & Holmes, The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis, 2nd edition 2012. Otherwise, you'll just have to trust someone with expertise and credentials who has published several peer reviewed studies on the Diatessaron (that's me). If you don't want to read for yourself or trust me, you (or someone else) can pay me to write an explainer. But I'm not going to do that free labor in a YouTube comments section. Cheers.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ian Mills Your freedom.
My freedom is, however, to conclude that your take is fairly insignificant as for Heliand and Crist I - III, and as for Diatesseron being a harmony, you have yourself pointed out some conservative scholars still think so.

Ian Mills

@Hans-Georg Lundahl yep, ignoring the experts when they disagree with you is definitely the easiest route.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ian Mills Giving hypocritic answers, for you.

I was not ignoring you, I was inviting you to give the argument.

When it comes to a brute fact directly observed, I'll go with the experts. But what the background is for Heliand is not a brute fact, it's a conclusion. I'm not believing an expert without his arguments.

If you decide this dialogue can be monetised, with you printing, obviously part of the payment for my text mass would be an example of the book you recommended, sent to the adress I confided you via the channel owner.

I don't feel a need to buy the mere word of an expert just because the occasion to consult the book he towts is beyond me.

Ian Mills

@Hans-Georg Lundahl send me an email (I'm easy to find on Academia or Google Scholar). I'll send you the PDFs for a handful of relevant publications. The price barrier to access academic publications is unconscionable.

Skipping

some search efforts

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ian Mills Reading Pagan Readers, and found your email there.

Mail upcoming, one which you invited and one, later, with another proposal.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ian Mills And, in this case, sorry for "hypocritic", btw. Didn't know your generosity in advance.

22:22 wait - is Marcion one of the things St. Irenee deals with in Adversus Haereses?

That old?

29:38 And the paper pope gained a little more similarity with the pope in textile white ... right?

A point made by Chesterton. While each book was upheld from the start by some important part of the Church (I do and he would have differed from the scholarship claiming pastoral epistles were only accepted later, and Timothy passage on "utility" (not sufficiency) "of the Bible" would clearly have been at variance with Marcion's take on OT, this initial qualification being my addition), the Church made the Bible, and the Bible did not make the Church.

A "little detail" Protestants sometimes have a little trouble to grasp, somewhat comparable to how Lutherans and Anglicans having some trouble to grasp that the Church made Sweden and England, Sweden and England did not make the Church, and the Church was already based in Rome before it made Sweden and England.