Joseph B. Tyson's Marcion and Luke–Acts: An Informal Review

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Joseph B. Tyson argues in Marcion and Luke–Acts: A Defining Struggle that the canonical version of Luke's gospel and the heretical gospel of Marcion, which was supposed by some proto-orthodox writers to have been a mutilation of canonical Luke, in fact both derive from some earlier proto-gospel from which Marcion omitted some things and to which the author of canonical Luke–Acts added other things as a polemic against Marcionite theology. Based on the book, which I found mostly compelling and an interesting companion to James R. Edwards’ The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition (which argues that Luke is based primarily on a now-lost gospel written in Hebrew, rather than being a synthesis of Mark and the hypothetical sayings compilation Q), I tried my hand at reconstructing what a draft n-1 of Luke's gospel might look like. It was a fun exercise and one which resulted in a very satisfying and thematically cohesive gospel narrative. I'd have fun trying to reconstruct what a draft n-2 might look like by subtracting sections lifted from Mark, but Mark seems more deeply integrated into the work than what was added to the front and end of the gospel in canonical draft n.

Below is a diagram where I try to illustrate a genealogy of gospel narratives. Green are canonical, yellow are attested/partial, and the red one in the middle is Tyson's proposed proto-Luke.

I do have one not-insignificant beef with Tyson's book, though. I think it's only more recently that Paul's persistent identity as a Pharisaic Jew (especially in seeing himself as a Jewish apostle to the gentiles) has become at least somewhat more of a popular consensus, but Tyson instead seems to take for granted Marcion's reading of Paul as a stricto sensu convert from Judaism to Christianity. Tyson says, following Philip Vielhauer, that Paul in his own words differs significantly from his characterization in Acts in that the latter is apparently more concerned with natural theology and Jewish identity even though (and this I agree with) he also sees Jesus' execution as "an error of justice and a sin of the Jews" whereas Paul in his epistles sees it as meaning "judgment and reconciliation". It seems more to me like the author of Acts somewhat accurately, if superficially, reproduces Paul's particular mode of discourse, but places him in situations where he has to give up Jews for gentiles, so as to communicate to his gentile audience that the Jews rejected the message which had first come to them (both from Jesus to the people of Judea, and from Paul to the Jewish diaspora). I still agree with Tyson's core thesis that Luke–Acts was compiled as anti-Marcionite apologia, by reassuring the reader that the basis of Christianity is in Judaism, but it seems less like it celebrates some combined Jewish/Christian identity than that it blames Jews for not understanding their own religion's philosophy and prophecies.

So I've arrived at a tentative conclusion that the core of Luke (draft n-1) is really interesting and useful, and aligned with the best of the early church works (while being a real attempt at synthesis between its Jewish and gentile tendencies!), but whoever shoved it into canonical Luke–Acts weaponized it to weird appropriative and antisemitic ends (even if perhaps less antisemitic than Marcion by blaming the people rather than the God of the Hebrew Bible... but still).

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