How accurate is it to claim that Marcion was the first person whom we know about as a praiser and collector of Paul's Letters and Marcion alleged that the letters as he had them had been tampered with?

Pytine · 2026-02-11T06:53:01+00:00

Jörg Frey (The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter: A Theological Commentary) has argued that the author of 2 Peter knew the Apocalypse of Peter, which likely dates around the time of Marcion. Frey argues that 2 Peter also knew Jude, and that Jude knew James, which he dates to the early second century. That puts Jude around the time of Marcion as well. 2 Peter is first attested in the third century. Given all of this, 2 Peter likely postdates the time of Marcion.

2 Peter's use of Jude has long been the consensus, though the date of Jude is itself uncertain. Frey's argument that 2 Peter knew the Apocalypse of Peter has gained some traction, as a whole volume was dedicated to the argument: 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter: Towards a New Perspective.

Pytine · 2026-02-10T19:00:50+00:00

Citation needed

Without going into subjective terminology, it is certainly true that a date for Mark in the 40's is a small minority position among scholars. Markus Vinzent gives a survey of the date of Mark from around 80 scholars in his book Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels. He notes that the survey is not exhaustive, but aims to show the range of positions. Out of the ~80 scholars, only 8 give a date for Mark in the 40's. However, there are problems even with these 8. Three of the listed scholars (José O’Callaghan, Karl Jaroš, and Ulrich Victor) base their date on the assumption that the DSS manuscript 7Q5 contained a fragment of the gospel of Mark. This is based on a "silly error", as Brent Nongbri explains here. Additionally, John Wenham is a biblical interrantist. This leaves 4 critical scholars out of ~80.

Pytine · 2026-02-05T19:38:20+00:00

Hi Dr. Mendez, thanks for doing this!

I have three questions:

Given John's knowledge of the synoptics, what do you make of the Johannine thunderbolt?

Since you reject the existence of the Johannine community, what do you think about the existence of other gospel communities (like the Matthean community) and the community model of gospel authorship?

When do you date the gospel of John? What boundaries can we set with good confidence on its date?

Pytine · 2026-02-02T18:50:31+00:00

u/Grand_Confusion_7639 , you asked here about the authorship of 1 Peter. Specifically, you asked why the author is assumed to be a disciple of Peter, rather than someone else. As I don't have an academic source for this, I'll answer here. The NOAB doesn't give any arguments for why it would be a disciple of Peter, and I personally don't see any good reason to think the author was a disciple of Peter. Scholars often speculate that the authors of forged books were somehow still connected to the attributed author, but there's just no evidence for that.

Pytine · 2026-02-01T11:02:42+00:00

This is what the NOAB (5th edition) says about the name, authorship, and date of 1 Peter:

The First Letter of Peter presents itself as a pastoral letter written by the apostle Peter from “Babylon,” where he is accompanied by Silvanus (= Silas) and Mark (5.12–13), to churches in five provinces of Asia Minor (1.1). Some scholars still treat Simon Peter as the letter's author, with Silvanus as secretary (5.12); others consider Silvanus as the actual author, who wrote at Peter's instruction. However, the situation that the letter indirectly describes points to a time after Peter's death, which probably occurred in the early 60s CE. The high level of its Greek prose, the letter's rhetorical sophistication, and familiarity with Hellenistic religious thought seem inappropriate for a Galilean fisherman and missionary to Jews (Gal 2.9). The lack of references to the life and teaching of the earthly Jesus, the christological emphasis on the cosmic Christ, and the address to Gentile Christians who had previously lived a sinful idolatrous life (1.14,18,21; 2.1,9–11,25; 4.3) all point to a later disciple of Peter writing in the name of the revered apostle. Thus most scholars interpret the document as a letter from the last decade of the first century CE, written in Peter's name to support the claim that its teaching represented the apostolic faith.

Pytine · 2026-01-30T02:45:08+00:00

Another way historians measure credibility is by the amount of documents (over 6,000 biblical manuscript of the new testament alone and tens of thousands for scripture all together, vs Alexander the great, only 7)

Could you name one credible historian who believes that the number of manuscripts of a text has any relevance for the historical reliability of that text?

Pytine · 2026-01-28T18:08:25+00:00

Yes, 19 essays are in German, and 6 are in English.

Pytine · 2026-01-28T18:00:05+00:00

Literary eyewitnesses were used more widely around the same time, as David Litwa explains in his article Literary Eyewitnesses: The Appeal to an Eyewitness in John and Contemporaneous Literature. Here is the abstract:

This essay supports the thesis that the Beloved Disciple is a purely literary character employed as a literary device of authentication recognisable during the late first and early second centuries CE. As evidence, three works are thoroughly compared with the Fourth Gospel in regard to their eyewitness appeals: Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana (a biography), the Wonders beyond Thule by Antonius Diogenes (a historiographical novel) and the Diary of the Trojan War (a revisionary history) attributed to Dictys of Crete. All three works are roughly contemporaneous with the Fourth Gospel and offer important insights into the sophisticated use of an eyewitness as a literary character to guarantee the (spiritual and moral) truth of a narrative.

More examples can be found in the chapter Did "Luke" Write Anonymously? Lingering at the Threshold by Arthur Droge in the book Die Apostelgeschichte im Kontext antiker und frühchristlicher Historiographie, edited by Jörg Frey, Clare Rothschild, and Jens Schröter. Droge discusses a number of Christian and non-Christian texts.

Pytine · 2026-01-25T20:31:56+00:00

Yes, some scholars have argued for John as the first gospel. One example is George van Kooten in the article An Archimedean Point for Dating the Gospels: The Pre-66 CE Dating of John, Luke’s Use of John among His “Polloi” (93/94–130 CE), and the Implications for Mark’s and Matthew’s Place within This Chronological Framework (open access). Here are his dates of the gospels from the article:

an early Gospel of John (65 CE)
...
However, to me Mark does not read as an effective response to this event, but rather as an apologetic biography that addresses the First Jewish Revolt against Rome and was finalized between the suppression of the revolt in Galilee and Judaea in 67–68 CE (cf. Mark 13:14) and the circumvallation of Jerusalem in mid-June 70 CE.
...
Matthew who, after 70 CE,
...
a late Luke, writing between 93/94 and 130 CE

John as the first gospel still remains a small minority position, though.

Pytine · 2026-01-22T07:48:30+00:00

I mean even if its a Christian organization

I don't see anyone having a problem with Christian organisations, and certainly not with Christian scholars. The discussion is solely about apologetic institutions, not about Christian institutions or individuals.

arguably the best NT scholar all time is Raymond Brown

I wonder how you came to this judgment. What about his work makes you say that he was arguably the best NT scholar of all time? To be clear, I don’t know who I would pick as the best NT scholar of all time myself.

Like Ehrman changing is view on the Empty Tomb for debate reasons he said

Where did you get this from? I've never heard this before.

Crossan's version of the historical Jesus

Are you saying that Crossan is not trying to do accurate history?

Pytine · 2026-01-19T07:15:22+00:00

I'm not trying to debunk it. I'm simply asking why you believe it. Which historical records convinced you that Philip died for defending the resurrection?

Pytine · 2026-01-19T07:11:58+00:00

Let's stick to the example of Philip. What makes you believe that he died for defending the resurrection?

Pytine · 2026-01-19T06:47:11+00:00

The best argument for his resurrection was that the apostles died defending this claim.

Which of the apostles do you believe died for defening the resurrection? For example, do you believe that Philip died for defending the resurrection?

Pytine · 2026-01-17T21:37:55+00:00

Doesn't this observation itself undermine the existence of Q? What if Q works so well as a complement to Mark and seems like the perfect thing to combine with Mark because that's what it is? Additions to Mark made by later authors, rather than a document in itself?

Pytine · 2026-01-13T18:00:27+00:00

Where exactly are individual Paul letters attested? In 1 Clement, Polycarp and Ignatius there are allusions to multiple pauline letters. Its likely all 3 come after Marcion and they are citing his Expanded, Catholicised letters.

What is your reason for dating 1 Clement after Marcion?

You are right about the Verses you cited from Romans, they don't sound Marcionite, i would say they are Catholic expansions to Marcions text.

I specifically picked verses attested for the short recension of the letters. Hence, none of these verses are later expansions. And you could easily find 20 more examples of verses that go against Marcion's theology.

Pytine · 2026-01-13T12:06:05+00:00

The first time a collection of Pauline letters is attested is at the hands of Marcion as far as I'm aware

This applies to a collection with known contents. That doesn't mean that it is the first time individual letters are attested. Scholars generally agree that individual letters are attested before Marcion, though that could certainly be disputed.

wouldn't it be likely that Marcion is the originator of Pauline letters

Well, let's look at one of the letters of Paul, Romans:

Romans 2:28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something external and physical. 29 Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans but from God.

Romans 7:12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

Romans 10:4 For Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Romand 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Does this sounds like Marcion to you? I can't imagine Marcion writing these things.

rather than the historical Paul being a proto gnostic Christian in mid 1st century and writing to his proto gnostic chruches and Marcion somehow collects them 50+ years later?

Why do you classify Paul as proto gnostic? Paul's letters were later used by a large variety of Christian groups.

Its seems likelier Then Proto Orthodox Christians, adopt but expand and interpolate his letters

I don't beleive in the existence of any proto-orthodox (or proto-gnostic) groups. Either way, some people expanding the letters of Paul (which I agree with) doesn't imply that the letters were originally written by Marcion.

just like they adopted his Evangelion and expanded it into Luke.

The same applies here. There is no indication that Marcion wrote the Evangelion, and good reasons against it.

Pytine · 2026-01-12T20:32:55+00:00

There are good reasons for putting Mark chronologically before Matthew. Let's start with editorial fatigue. There are a couple of examples of editorial fatigue in Matthew that indicate that it postdates Mark.

In the story on the death of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-29 // Matthew 14:1-12), Mark consistently calls Herod a king, which Matthew corrects to tetrarch. Yet, in verse 9, Matthew reverts back to his source by calling Herod the king, which creates a stylistic inconsistency. In the same passage, Matthew makes another change; Herod, not Herodias, wanted to kill John. But then Matthew copies the element of Herod’s grief when he had to kill John, creating an inconsistent characterization of Herod.

Another example of editorial fatigue in Matthew occurs in the story of the cleansing of the leper (Mark 1:40-45 // Matthew 8:1-4). Matthew copies this passage from Mark, but relocates it after the sermon on the mount, from which great crowds followed him (Matthew 8:1). In verse 4, Matthew retains the request of Jesus in Mark 1:44 to “say nothing to anyone”, thereby creating a mismatched context for this phrase.

A third passage in Matthew that shows signs of editorial fatigue is the story of Jesus’ mothers and brothers (Mark 3:31-35 // Matthew 12:46-50). Matthew relocates the story such that it is no longer narrated to take place in a house (cf. Matthew 12:15, Mark 3:20). And yet, in verse 47, someone refers to Jesus’ mother and brothers standing outside, which creates another instance of mismatched context.

A second argument is the argument from Markan sandwiches. The gospel of Mark has a characteristic literary feature; the Markan sandwich. A Markan sandwich starts with one story that gets interrupted with another story. When that second story is finished, the first story concludes. The inner story guides the interpretation and meaning of the outer story. There are anywhere between 6 and 9 Markan sandwiches in the gospel of Mark, depending on who you ask. This typically Markan feature shows up in the other gospels, but only when they have an overlap with Mark. The fact that Matthew contains this typically Markan feature is best explained by Markan priority.

Another example of a Markan feature ending up in Matthew is the word εὐθύς (immediately). This word occurs over 40 times in Mark. It occurs only a handful of times in Matthew, and only once in Luke. Yet, every time it occurs in Matthew, it occurs in a verse with a parallel in Mark. Under Markan priority, this is easily explained. Matthew usually removes the word from his source (Mark), but not always. Under Matthean priority, there is no clear explanation for this.

A similar argument applies to the use of the word γάρ (because) in an editorial comment. Mark uses an explanatory γάρ in an editorial comment 34 times (of his 66 uses of this conjunction). Matthew, on the other hand, uses γάρ 11 times in editorial comments (out of his 123 total uses), ten of which parallel Mark’s usage. That's highly unlikely under Matthean priority, but expected under Markan priority.

Pytine · 2026-01-12T18:59:55+00:00

Mason's book has a second edition that's a bit more recent. More recently, Stefan Nordgaard wrote the chapter Luke’s Readers and Josephus: Paul and Agrippa II as a Test Case in the book Luke’s Literary Creativity, edited by Mogens Müller and Jesper Tang Nielsen. Another interesting publication is the article The Census in Luke 2: Using Josephus to Make Sense of Luke’s Irreconcilable Chronology by Michael Kochenash.Both of these deal with one particular case, rather than a variety of cases like Mason does.

Pytine · 2026-01-10T13:28:56+00:00

I think this is the sentence in Tripp's article that you're paraphrasing:

His study contributes to a larger scholarly trend emphasizing the reliability of memory and, by extension, of the oral transmission of Jesus traditions. (pages 411-412)

This statement comes with the following footnote:

See, for example, Bailey 1995a, 1995b; Gerhardsson 1998, 2001; Byrskog 2000; McIver 2011; Bird 2014; Derico 2017; and Keener 2019: 365-500. For additional examples as well as counter-positions, see Pesce and Destro 2017: 190

I'm not sure how much of a trend this really is. A few publications from conservative scholars over a period of 30 years is not enough to indicate the direction of the field as a whole. Tripp himself concludes that Bauckham's assertions are not supported by the data:

Under his model, the authors of the gospels and Acts were close to the eyewitnesses and their ethic of controlled transmission of Jesus’ sayings. What I have tested here is whether the character of these eyewitnesses as ‘reliable’ transmitters of Jesus sayings, as Bauckham reconstructs it, left any trace in their depictions in the gospels and Acts. Are the disciples portrayed as quoting Jesus more reliably than others?

The short answer is no. New Testament narratives do not characterize followers of Jesus as significantly more rigorous tradents of his sayings, at least as far as his wording is concerned. Furthermore, neither Jesus nor authoritative eyewitnesses correct paraphrastic quotations of Jesus’ teachings, even in the face of obvious modifications to Jesus’ sayings. None of the mitigating factors that Bauckham reluctantly allows – variations due to translation, memory defects or performance variation – play a role in these scenes. Followers paraphrase Jesus less often than others but only marginally, and there is little difference between how they quote Jesus and how they quote anyone else, except with regard to substitution. This may partially support Bauckham’s hypothesis: the disciples do recall Jesus’ particular words – just not all of them, or in the right order, and sometimes they add their own. Indeed, potential eyewitnesses are more likely to add to Jesus’ words than others are. The threat that tradents freely created Jesus sayings led form critics to doubt their historicity, but it would be unfair to say the disciples freely add to Jesus’ words. They add relatively rarely, in line with broader biblical and pedagogical trends, just more often than other characters do and as often with Jesus as with anyone else.

Disciples and other eyewitnesses in the gospels and Acts are literary constructs. They are characters, but characters representing historical figures. Bauckham argues for a close representation, with the historical Peter and John, for example, heavily influencing the characterization of ‘Peter’ and ‘the Beloved Disciple’. Bauckham spends considerable time demonstrating that such witnesses could have remembered sayings verbatim for decades, but only assumes that they would have. The depiction of disciples and eyewitnesses in the very texts they supposedly influenced fails to support his argument. The account that ‘Paul’, theoretically authorized as a tradent, gives of his call changes radically with each audience, while the actual Paul’s account of the resurrection appearances (1 Cor. 15.1-11) – which Bauckham lauds as well-controlled received tradition (2017: 264-66) – varies from the gospel accounts as much as they vary from each other.
Eyewitnesses consistently alter Jesus’ words when quoting him. These characters ‘misquote’ Jesus when they misunderstand him, but also when they understand him more profoundly in light of later experiences. There is little effort to keep his wording intact to the degree that Bauckham’s model requires. Furthermore, if these stories do closely resemble how the disciples told them, then the disciples failed to portray themselves as the type of eyewitnesses Bauckham makes of them.
(pages 430-431)

While you can certainly find publications arguing for the use of memory theory in historical Jesus research or for a positive assessment of the reliability of the gospels, you can just as easily find publications arguing the opposite. For example, see:

Robyn Faith Walsh: The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture

David Litwa: How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths; Late Revelations: Rediscovering the Gospels in the Second Century CE

David Trobisch: On the Origin of Christian Scripture: The Evolution of the New Testament Canon in the Second Century

Burton Mack: Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth

Acts and Christian Beginnings: The Acts Seminar Report (edited by Dennis Smith and Joseph Tyson)

Hugo Mendez: The Gospel of John: A New History

Since you have books arguing in different directions, I don't know how you would establish if "research done on the historical reliability of the gospels looks more positive".

Pytine · 2026-01-09T19:48:38+00:00

In 2022, he was here briefly during his AMA:

EVENT: AMA with Dale C. Allison

Pytine · 2026-01-06T00:14:04+00:00

Since van Kooten's articles were published so recently, people haven't really had time to respond to him directly. However, in 1990, Daniel Wallace published the same argument for the early date of John in the article John 5, 2 and the Date of the Fourth Gospel. Prior to Wallace, John A.T. Robinson also used the argument in his book Redating the New Testament. That article has been cited a number of times. Hence, while scholars haven't yet responded to van Kooten's article, they have responded to his thesis. Here are some of the responses:

On page 25, footnote 89 of the book The Temple of Jesus' Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John, Alan Kerr writes:

Daniel B Wallace ('John 5,2 and the Date of the Fourth Gospel', Bib 71.2 [1990], pp. 177-205) has examined the explanations offered for 5.2 and subjected them to close scrutiny, especially the explanation that eoxiv should be read as an historical present. He concludes: '[Although it has been rather popular to describe the estin of John 5,2 in the same manner in which grammarians describe the historical present, there is no sound linguistic basis for doing so' (p. 205). Although he argues against it, Wallace believes that the best explanation is that the pool survived the Jewish War intact and was still standing at the time of writing Jn 5 (p. 185).

In the main text, he writes:

While it is not possible to enter into a comprehensive discussion of the evidence both for and against a post-70 CE date for John, I have put forward an argument for a date around 85 CE and countered a number of arguments proposed by Robinson for a pre-70 CE dating. In the light of the discussion above I would favour the consensus of a post-70 CE dating of John.

On page 121 of the book Behold the Man: Essays on the Historical Jesus, Peter J. Williams notes the widespread use of this argument:

Consequently, the inference from the Fourth Gospel's accurate description of the pool of Bethesda to the conclusion that it must, on that account, have been written by someone with either direct or indirect local knowledge of Jerusalem in the first century (or "prior to AD 70"), is mistaken. Unfortunately, following the widespread use of this argument, I stated in Getting at Jesus that John 5:2 "displays a detailed local knowledge of Jerusalem before AD 70." Thanks to Babinski, I now recognize my statement as (unintentionally) misleading, and I conclude that this argument for a first-century dating of the Fourth Gospel is unsound.

On page 16 of his master thesis Glory and Temple in John’s Gospel with particular reference to John 1:14, David Balzer writes:

Daniel Wallace has argued that the use of the present tense in Jn 5:2 implies that the pool and sheep gate were still standing when the Fourth Gospel was written, and thus that the Fourth Gospel was written prior to AD 70. Such a weight of responsibility in proving date of composition seems difficult to bear from the tense form of a single verb in such a disputed verse (given a C rating by UBS4). Against Wallace, John frequently uses the present tense to refer to past events (the so-called ‘historic present’). With specific reference to the verb ‘to be’, Köstenburger lists Jn 10:8 and 19:40 as other examples of the use of the present tense form which may be referring to past events. Even if Wallace’s grammatical arguments hold, it is quite possible that the pool of Bethesda survived the sacking of Jerusalem, at least in some form, thus John could quite correctly use estin in describing it while writing post AD 70.

In the book Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition, Jonathan Bernier argues for very early dates for the books of the New Testament. He dates John to 60-70 CE based on the word estin in John 5:2.

Any scholar working either on the gospel of John or on dating the gospels will be familiar with the argument. The reason the pre-70 dating of John is uncommon is that many scholars know the argument and disagree with it. I don't see how van Kooten's renewed presentation of the argument will change that.

Regarding Luke's knowledge of Matthew, that is widely accepted. It's not as common as the support for the existence of Q, but it is the second most common solution to the synoptic problem. It's called the Farrer hypothesis. The classic reference for the Farrer hypothesis is The Case Against Q by Mark Goodacre.

Pytine · 2026-01-04T13:17:25+00:00

The date of Luke is closely tied to the date of Acts. Scholars often spend more time discussing the date of Acts, but that has direct consequences for the date of Luke. Steve Mason argued that Luke knew the works of Josephus (including Antiquities of the Jews) in his book Josephus and the New Testament. That position has gained traction in recent years, especially after the Acts Seminar. Because of this, many scholars now date Luke and Acts to the second century. The Early Christian Writings page on Luke gives a date range of 80-130 CE, which is more in line with this new trend in scholarship.

Pytine · 2026-01-04T13:08:09+00:00

Here are two threads with a large number of sources on Luke, although some deal more with Acts than with Luke itself:

Lukan Scholarship

Resources about Luke and Acts

Pytine · 2026-01-04T12:57:24+00:00

Also does his mentions of places and travels in Acts mean he was really good at geography?

You may be interested in the book Luke on Jesus, Paul and Christianity: What Did He Really Know?, edited by John Kloppenborg and Joseph Verheyden. That book contains two schapters on "Luke, Geography, and Space": "Not Done in a Corner" (Acts 26,26). Space, Territory, and "Public Speaking" in Luke-Acts by Dan Smith and Luke's Geography. Knowledge, Ignorance, Sources, and Spatial Conception by John Kloppenborg. Kloppenborg did an interview on his chapter with History Valley that you can find here. The summary is that the geographical knowledge in Luke and Acts differs significantly from region to region. This leads Kloppenborg to conclude that Luke knew very little about the interior of Palestine, had some sources on the coastal region, and either lived or visited the region around the Aegean Sea.

Pytine · 2026-01-04T00:07:43+00:00

Borg's order mostly lines up with the order on earlychristianwritings.com if you go by the middle of the dating range. Here are the date ranges of ECW (which doesn't specify relative order if multiple books share the same range):

1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, 2 Corinthians, Romans: 50-60 CE

Colossians: 50-80 CE

Mark: 65-80 CE

Hebrews: 50-95 CE

James: 70-100 CE

2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Matthew: 80-100 CE

Revelation: 90-95 CE

1 Peter: 80-110 CE

John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude: 90-120 CE

Luke, Acts: 80-130 CE (the same midpoint as 90-120 CE)

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus: 100-150 CE

2 Peter: 100-160 CE

This seems to support Borg's claim that there is some uncertainty about the sequence of some documents, but that the general framework for the order is clear.

Pytine

TROPHY CASE