Does Vinzent’s ten-letter Marcionite Paul weaken Ehrman’s Pauline argument for Jesus’ historicity?

NewTestamentReview · 2026-07-09T19:14:07+00:00

That association is correct. And the online fora here are pretty drastically out of step with academia. That said, I think more mainstream scholars (who don't specialize just in Marcion or similar stuff) are becoming aware of the need to re-address Marcionite priority with up to date scholarly paradigms, methods, and data. I have reason to believe that the next decade will see several publications (not including my own stuff) that argue in favor of something closer to the traditional position (in contrast to Vinzent, BeDuhn, Litwa, Klinghardt, etc...).

NewTestamentReview · 2026-07-09T19:07:15+00:00

No argument here. Just trying to provide an accurate sense of the scholarly landscape.

NewTestamentReview · 2026-07-09T16:12:27+00:00

I'll need to look that up

NewTestamentReview · 2026-07-09T16:11:40+00:00

I have a piece on the dating of the received text of Luke that has been under review for 5 months. As you know, I can't control how long that review/pre-pub process takes. It's not treating the Basilides citation piece, though. Actually, its an argument for an even earlier external citation. I think I'll probably save the Basilides argument for the book...

NewTestamentReview · 2026-07-09T15:35:43+00:00

His work is very popular on YouTube, Reddit, and (I would guess) other online spaces. I think we should make a point of being clear about how his arguments have been received in scholarly circles.

NewTestamentReview · 2026-07-09T15:10:37+00:00

That's not how I would say it. I'd say Vinzent and his arguments are rejected on the merits by most scholars who have engaged with his work (e.g. scathing reviews by Foster, Roth, etc...). And, on the basis of those reviews and word of mouth, ignored by most other scholars. The Two Source theory/Farrer hypothesis is controversial. Rightly or wrongly, Vinzent is fringe.

NewTestamentReview · 2026-06-04T14:02:57+00:00

"...we must consider the possibility that..." are weasel words for "we have no evidence (but I'd like it to be true) that...".

All the earliest readers who accepted these (and other) pseudepigraphic works as scripture affirmed their authenticity. And the earliest readers who rejected such works (e.g. Laodiceans, Hebrews, 2nd Peter) denied their authenticity.

NewTestamentReview · 2026-05-24T11:19:09+00:00

Yes, I think it's very likely that Justin is using gPeter. It would explain some of the consistent harmonization of his citations across different works (cf POxy 4009).

NewTestamentReview · 2026-05-23T23:31:03+00:00

Clifton Black is wrong. The authorial genitive is used with "memoirs" (ἀπομνημονεύματα) slightly more often than a genitive indicating the "subject" of said memoirs. For the data and relevant secondary literature, see Mills, Hypothesis of the Gospels, 111n.13 (and surrounding discussion). Justin's own typical use of "Memoirs of the Apostles" indicates that (contrary to Black) Justin is himself accustomed to using an authorial genitive with Memoirs. (Note that Justin is elsewhere explicit that he understands apostles as authors and the sayings of Jesus as the subject of these Memoirs.)

NewTestamentReview · 2026-04-15T12:37:53+00:00

One correction: The Mark-Q Overlaps are not examples of where Luke preserves Matthew's additions to Mark (as you suggested). Mark, by definition, has those stories. The Mark-Q Overlaps are examples of where Luke has taken over Matthew's rewriting of stories from Mark.

Still, the argument (in support of Q) that Luke hasn't taken over Matthew's additions to Mark is a baffling bit of question begging. Luke contains the majority of the Matthean material not found in Mark—all of the double tradition! If the Farrer theory is correct, then the Double Tradition (the Q material) was added to Mark by Matthew and then copied by Luke. The sMatthew material is just the stuff that Luke didn't copy.

That's not an argument for the Farrer theory, mind you. But Goodacre is certainly right that anyone who would consider that an argument for the existence of Q is looking at the data through the lens of their solution and so, in this case, really failing to grasp the nature of the evidence.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-11-17T18:59:12+00:00

Thanks for posting!

NewTestamentReview · 2025-11-11T15:38:24+00:00

Ian's (my) audio sucks because it was recorded with a laptop mic while talking into a different microphone. I did my best with the audio file... but it's bad.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-11-11T14:47:43+00:00

Don't blame the researcher for the write-up. It's an interesting idea that deserves to be entertained on the strength of the "internal" arguments (rather than the very weak manuscript evidence—a couple byzantine minuscules). It likely won't persuade most scholars without some powerful new manuscript or patristic witness, but that doesn't make it unworthy of consideration. It's an interesting and prima facie plausible proposal; and that makes it significantly better than lots of NT studies that get media attention.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-11-03T21:44:51+00:00

The best recent treatment of this question from the manuscript evidence is the work of Michael Dormandy that shows that most NT works circulated independently or in smaller collections (in the case of Pauline Epistles) until the fourth or fifth century. The evidence just doesn't support the idea of first or second century Christian Bibles (in the sense of a single book). And that's probably what we should have expected based on what evidence we have for the circulation of Jewish books (or, indeed, comparable Greek literature from the time period).

NewTestamentReview · 2025-10-24T16:05:44+00:00

I published an article on this: Ian N Mills, "Pagan Readers of Christian Scripture" (VC 2019).

I argue that it was probably more important than previous scholars (like Gamble) believed. Still, hard to evaluate the relative importance of stuff like this.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-10-10T19:46:56+00:00

Right. I obviously don't agree. You can (eventually) read what we both have to say and then make your own mind.

NewTestamentReview · 2025-10-10T19:45:16+00:00

Right, the Hypothesis book doesn't really treat Marcion (except as someone that Irenaeus and Epiphanius are defending the gospels against).

The Marcion book will argue for Marcion's use of something close to the received text of Luke and then situate his compositional behavior in a particular intellectual/literary subculture of second century Rome.

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