Book Synopsis

Published by L&R Hartley, PUBLISHERS, 2007

Marcion, a second-century Christian, is an important figure in the history of the Christian Church. He grew up on the shores of the Black Sea. He strongly disliked much of what he read in the Jewish Bible. He boldly and forcefully claimed that the God of the Jews was a revengeful and inferior God and therefore he could in no way at all be connected with Jesus' message of love.

In Marcion's day there was no Holy Bible, as we know it today. The Christian Church did not possess an official Canon of Scripture. Of course the leaders of the Church of Rome regarded Marcion as a great threat to the very existence of their Church. No wonder he was excommunicated and declared a dangerous heretic. Undaunted, Marcion produced his own Bible, which forced the Roman theologians to compose their own authoritative Canon of Scripture. It took them several centuries to put together the New Testament as we know it today.

Parker shows that Marcion's criticism of the Jewish Bible was unfounded. Marcion failed to understand that the Jewish theologians had their own way of explaining why life is as it is. Parker's conclusion is that almost all the unpleasantness that upset Marcion so much happened on paper only.

Parker asks, and tries to answer, many important questions. For example, at a conference not long after the death of Jesus (a conference held in Jerusalem, not Rome!) there was a sharp controversy that turned on the validity of the Mosaic Law. Why is it that Peter who attended the conference never exercised his authority to make decisions, when confronted by his rival Paul? Was it not Jesus himself who had given Peter in the presence of the other disciples, the authority to make decisions of religious importance? Why did James, the brother of Jesus, not refer to his brother's saying that he had not come to abolish the Law of Moses? And why, at the conference, was Jesus, as far as we know, never quoted? Did Jesus wish to found a church? He never proclaimed a creed and never made an official statement of his beliefs. If he had done so Paul and the Gospel writers would have recorded it.

Is it not true to say that the rigid dogmas and doctrines that were the brainchild of theologians who lived very long after Jesus, tend to eclipse his original message? Can the Church of Rome legitimately claim that its authority rests completely and only on the teachings of Jesus?

Among the followers of Marcion there was a great variety of attitudes and understandings, yet they lived together in peaceful coexistence. When a triumphant Church got rid of Marcionism as a movement, the world unfortunately lost an attractive and alternative form of Christianity.