I ask the question because it is central to the thesis of the Tubingen
School/F.C. Bauer/H. Detering: is there any evidence of the existence of
the Paulines before Marcion? Not just things that sound like they're Paulunist,
but explicitly referring to the Paulines as if they are Epistles.
The Letters of Ignatius of Antioch are very Paulunist, but so far I haven't
seen anything that makes me say "Pauline Epistle". And they're about the only
supposed retort the classic Tubingen/F.C. Bauer/Detering thesis I know of.
As the Letters are so much of a mess, I decided they can't be used for
assumes some recension of the letters is valid, but the only things
in there that I saw was "literary contact", "similarities in vocabulary" etc.;
nothing that would come up to PBF, or my, standards.
So I'm still left with nothing serious referring to the Paulines before
There is a really good summary article one why this is important by Hermann Detering:
It's a summary but there is at least one new thing in there which stopped
me dead in my tracks (pun intended):
- Proxy baptism for the dead (1 Cor. 15:29) has not been confirmed earlier than among the Marcionites in the second century.
There is absolutely no way proxy baptism could be in a pre-60 AD story line.
NO WAY. The Jamesian church was less than 30 years old, and they were all
deep Hebrew believers (except the Apostate SPaul).
Hence 1Cor. is post-150 AD at least; proxy baptism would not be until whatever
the Marcionite church was well established, with enough dying Marcionites to need
proxying, to such an extent they felt it necessary to work it into Holy Scripture.
So in keeping with Detering, I'll take a confirmed position on this:
1Cor. and by implication 2Cor., Rom., and Gal. (at least) are Marcionite works,
and the Paul of the Paulines is a literary extrapolation of the Paul of Acts
by the Marcionites (Marcions mentors, or Marcion, or his followers).
There's also the "husband is dead"/"Jehovah is dead" part of Romans 7
which is also purely, and unabashedly, Marcionite.
I understand that the Paulines post-150 AD will have some dating reprecussions,
be that as it may, but I'll let the Tubingen school speak to that.