The first collection of New Testament books ever made was by Marcion, called "the heretic," about the year 145 A.D. (Westcott, On The Canon Of The New Testament, p. 308). It consisted of one Gospel and ten of Paul's Epistles (Tertullian, Avd. Marc., v.), and they were not then considered the word of God.
"Faith is the divine authority or inspiration of current books had not yet arisen…[Marcion] did not consider Paul's Epistles inspired or of divine authority (Davidson, Intro. N. T., ii. 516-517).
You need to realize that this was seventy-five years after Paul was dead. The Epistles which Marcion accepted were Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, Romans, First and Second Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, Phillipians, and Philemon (Davidson, Intro. N. T., ii. 516-517). He omitted First and Second Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews, which we have since called genuine and placed in the Bible. His Gospel has been the subject of much controversy, the orthodox people asserting that it was Luke's mutilated; and the unbelievers denying this, and asserting that it was the manuscript from which Luke's Gospel was subsequently made up. The facts are these: Marcion's Gospel had no name (Tert., Adv. Haer., iv. 2). Indeed, as St. Chrysostom observes, none of the apostles affixed their signatures to the Gospels now bearing their names (Hom. I. in Epis. Ad. Rom.). That was the work of the church long afterward, and we have simply the church's word that they are genuine. And thus we find that in Marcion's time, more than a century after Jesus was crucified, even if a Gospel by Luke were in existence, his name had not yet been attached to it.
Answer for yourself: If Marcion's Gospel was Luke's Gospel the question arises: "How does it happen that a heretic was in possession of a genuine Gospel before the church itself was?" That's a good one. The inference is plain. It was the Luke we would later have "re-worked" by the Catholic Church how would later add the first three chapter which were missing in Marcion's Gospel. That explains all the errors and mistakes in these three chapters.
Answer for yourself: Marcion was considered later by the Catholic Church (when they were in authority) a heretic. Can you see that such branding of people as "heretics" was little more than saying that they disagrees with you? This is important when you read early church history because many who had the truth, like the Ebionites, are branded by the Catholic Encyclopedia and early Catholic Fathers as "heretics." Understand this is nothing more than Gentiles disagreeing with Jews. The Jews automatically are deemed "heretics." These Jews, the Ebionites, just happened to be the first followers of Yeshua in the first century. Should such ones who knew him personally be called "heretics" by those who replaced the religion of Jesus with one of their own making?
Marcion's Gospel was identical, word for word, with about three-fourths of the present Gospel of Luke, and it was shorter than Luke. Now, you should know how annotations made on the margin of a manuscript find their way into the text in the process of coping, and this in time increase the length of a work, so that of two manuscripts of the same book, one shorter than the other, the shorter is generally the older. As I have said, Marcion's Gospel was the shorter. The charge has been made that Marcion purposefully mutilated Paul's Epistles and Luke's Gospel to suit his doctrinal needs. It originated with Irenaeus, and was repeated with great violence by Tertullian and Epiphanius, and has been reiterated by theologians ever since, until very recently orthodoxy itself began to admit that it is not true (Davidson, Intro. N.T., ii. 517). So far from Marcion being a "heretic," he included in his canonical list all that he considered to be genuine Christian books (Westcott, On The Canon Of The New Testament, p. 311), and he gives indications of having been a much more careful scholar than his accusers. This is the irony of redactionist history by those who come to power and rewrite history to their own liking. The Epistle which we now call "to the Ephesians" Marcion called "to the Laodiceans" and prided himself on restoring its true name (Tert. Adv. Marc., x. 17). He omitted from his Gospel the parable of the prodigal son (Westcott, On The Canon Of The New Testament, p. 312), and from the Epistle to the Romans chapters 9-11 as well as the last two chapters (Origen, Comm. In Rom., xvi. 25), either because they were not there in his time, or because he was satisfied they were interpolations. Either way they were to be rejected. That means, Paul did not write them, because Marcion being pro-Pauline, would have included them for his advantage against the Jews if they existed. That also means that favorite memorized passage by most Christians, Romans 9:10-11 was not in the earliest Romans and never written by Paul:
Rom 10:9-11
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. (KJV)
The passages were simply not in the original Romans in 150 A.D.!
Understand that Marcion has to be called a heretic today, or else we might seriously investigate his New Testament, or the omissions in it which we think today are given by God and which we live by instead of the Torah! THINK! One only needs to read Tertullian and see how he blasts Marcion. So again, the Catholics are right. Might makes right; it has for a long time. It will soon be time for the Catholic Church to fill in the blanks of Marcion's New Testament. Their anti-Semitic doctrines will become New Testament Scripture in less than fifty years from Marcion's New Testament. So understand, when you pick up an old history book or a current theology book, like I did in Seminary, and read that "so and so" is a "heretic," don't be surprised and understand that most likely they had the "truth" once. You need to read and study to see for yourself. Dear ones, "orthodoxy today" is "unorthodoxy in the first century;" and "unorthodoxy today" is quite often found to be the beliefs of Jesus and the original church. May God forgive us for changing and then neglecting His true Word; the Jewish Palestinian Masoretic Text...the Tanakh. Now before you say you have it in your Old Testament in your Christian Bible, you need to set down for this. It is a blatant and purposeful mistranslation full of hundreds of misquotations affecting doctrine which was done by Greek-Jews of Phythagorean/Buddhist persuasion in the second century B.C.E. More on that elsewhere in this web-site. You need to see the evidence for yourself. I have and provide it for you. It is time to get back to the Bible Jesus used!
Some of the illustrations of the charges against Marcion will indicate their worthlessness character. In Seminary we were enamored with the early Church Fathers. When their names came up you could hear the "oohs" from those who revered them, yet had never read them. At one time that was me included. Such is power of tradition! Well, a lot of time and little reading will enlighten the blind!
We trust these men's doctrines and their writings; all the while believing they knew what they were doing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Tertullian will do great damage to Marcion in his writings. He will almost single-handedly convict Marcion for all time of editing "out" much of the "supposed existing New Testament." Tertullian (220 A.D.) says Marcion eliminated from Luke's Gospel the sayings of Jesus that he came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill (Adv. Marcion, iv. 7).
Answer for yourself: Did you see a problem with that?
That passage is not in Luke, but in Matthew (Matt. 5:17), yet Tertullian actually repeats this charge on three subsequent occasions (Adv. Marcion, iv. 2, iv.12, iv. 36). Maybe Tertullian should read the Gospels before he comments on them or corrects another about them. Tertullian goes on to say that Marcion must have expunged "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and give it to the dogs" (Ibid., iv. 7). These also are not in Luke, but in Matthew (Matt. 15:24-26). The charge that he mutilated the canonical list, and those books which he accepted, will not stand.
There is another noteworthy thing to note: No writer before Marcion's time makes mention of the Gospel according to Luke, and no writer after him does so till Irenaeus, nearly fifty years later. These are the facts.
Many think these facts are sufficient to give ground for suspicion that some one after Marcion took Marcion's "unnamed Gospel" and forged Luke's name to it. Yep! You will have to decide for yourself.