Marcion is the first person known to us who published a fixed collection of what we would call New Testament books. Others may have done so before him; if so, we have no knowledge of them. He rejected the Old Testament totally, as having no relevance or authority for Christians; his collection of documents was therefore designed to be the first New Testament. I wonder what Yeshua thought of his endeavors since Marcion threw out the Bible Yeshua (Yeshua) used. It is amazing that before Marcion (over 140 years) we find no evidence of the "church" using or even having a need for any writings other than the Jewish Bible of Yeshua. Just consider this one fact for a minute.
Answer for yourself: What implications does this have for you as a believer who attends contemporary churches where the Old Testament is rarely used?
Marcion was born about 100 C.E. at Sinope, a seaport on the Black Sea coast of Asia Minor. His father was a leader in the synagogue of that city, and Marcion was brought up in the Apostolic Faith. Of all the apostles, the one who appealed to him most strongly was Paul, to whom he became passionately devoted, ultimately concluding that he was the ONLY apostle who preserved the teaching of Yeshua in its purity. This strikes me as almost unbelievable. Paul never met Yeshua or heard him preach or teach one lesson. Paul's only encounter with Yeshua was a vision; it is for that reason I find it hard to imagine that Marcion would discount the lives and testimonies of those who not only knew Yeshua personally, but lived and ministered along his side for three and one-half years. It is hard for any unbiased person to believe that Paul's understanding was greater than James for example; after all James was Yeshua's brother who lived with him over thirty years and was Yeshua's choice to lead the Messianic Congregation after his ascension (and not Paul).
Marcion embraced with great zeal the teachings of Paul, especially his gospel of justification by divine grace, apart from legal works. This view is an incorrect assessment as I have shown in previous newsletters regarding the role of the Law with grace. Marcion has been called "the only man in the early church who understood Paul," however it would be later said of him also that "even in his understanding he misunderstood him." Marcion's refusal to allow any element of law-keeping (obedience) be connected to Paul's understanding of the message of salvation (which is connected with faith) led Marcion to the tragic and incorrect conclusion that the Old Testament, its laws and statutes had been superseded by the gospel. There is only one problem: the Bible in the New Testament never says that (often you have to consult the original languages to see the hidden truths and more correct understandings concerning this issue). Due to inadequate renderings in the English we often arrive at conclusions which were never intended by the original writers. The gospel, Marcion believed, was an "entirely new teaching brought to earth by Messiah". Marcion believed that the law and the prophets made no sort of preparation for the Gospel, and if some passages in Paul's correspondence suggested that they did, then those passages were reasoned by Marcion to be a kind of "judaizing" (reverting back to Hebraic customs and understandings) against whom Marcion believed Paul to have preached against in Galatians and other letters. Marcion made one tragic mistake, he read the New Testament in Greek without reverting back to the Hebrew for comparisons in doctrines and teachings. Such a grave mistake is responsible today for over 1500 denominations that make a laughing stock of Eph 4:5 which holds up "one faith" as the ideal. That one faith once delivered to the saints was and still is Messianic Judaism.
Sources teach us that Marcion appears to have remained in communion with the "proto-Catholic Church" of his day so long as he lived in Asia Minor. There is some reasons to think that he shared his radical thoughts with leading churchmen of the region, such as Polycarp of Smyrna (disciple of the Apostle John) and Papias of Hierapolis, but found them unresponsive.
Desiring a more positive response for his radical teachings, he ventured to talk with the churchman of Rome where he made a handsome donation of money to the church (he was a ship owner and was quite well off). His understanding of the gospel and its implications was so self-evidently right to his own way of thinking that he could not believe that it would fail to be equally self-evident to any other unprejudiced mind. But the Roman churchmen were disturbed by his doctrine that they not only rejected it but even returned the money he had presented to the church! That would be a miracle if done in today's churches!
Not only did Marcion regard Paul as the only faithful apostle of Yeshua; he maintained that the original apostles had corrupted their Master's teaching with an admixture of legalism. Not only did he reject the Old Testament (the Jewish Bible Yeshua used); he distinguished the God of the Old Testament from the God of the New Testament. Now we have two Gods. This distinction of two deities, each with his independent existence speaks of the Gnostic influence on Marcion's thought. The God who created the material universe, the God of Israel, was (as Marcion held) different from the Father of whom Yeshua spoke. The Father of Yeshua was the good and merciful God of whom none had ever heard of before until Yeshua came to reveal him. Along the lines of Gnostic teachings, the God who made the material world was an inferior deity (inferior in status and morality) to the supreme God who was pure spirit. Now we have a "good God" and an "evil God". The Gnostic depreciation of the material order finds an echo in Marcion's refusal to believe that Yeshua entered human life by being "born of a woman" (Ga. 4:4). The result of such teaching is that one will look forward to the day that he can escape from the evil body and become pure spirit. Does this sound familiar (Rom. 8:24). Paul bought into this dualism in a big way.
We are fortunate that at this time the church of Rome was yet enlightened and unprejudiced, but that would change later. Still the church of Rome found Marcion's teachings unacceptable. So Marcion, despairing of being able to convince the catholic church anywhere of the truth of his message, withdrew from the catholic fellowship and established a church of his own. The church survived for several generations which is surprising since its membership was maintained solely through conversion. It could not keep its membership up by incorporating the children of existing members, for celibacy was obligatory on all its membership. At the same time, Marcion was a faithful enough Paulinist to allow no discrimination against female members of his church in matters of privilege or function because he agreed with Paul that there was "neither male nor female" (Gal. 3:28).
Marcion provided his followers with an his rendition of the First New Testament. Marcion's new scriptures included no part of the Old Testament (Jewish Bible) and were written in Greek. Please keep in mind that he did not call his collection "The New Testament". It would be another 100 years or so before anyone would come up with that idea. Yeshua had been gone over 110 years before Marcion decided to create his new scriptures. Just think about it! Christianity did not have a need for a "New Testament".
Answer for yourself: From what did the church teach during that 110 years since they did not have a New Testament?
A number of questions should come to your mind at this time:
Answer for yourself: Why didn't the "church" see a need for a New Testament?
Answer for yourself: Why didn't Yeshua tell his disciples to copy his words & produce a replacement
Bible?
Answer for yourself: Why didn't Yeshua apostles record Yeshua's words or their own?
Answer for yourself: Why were the writings of the Jewish Bible used as the only Scripture?
Answer for yourself: Why was Marcion so anti-Semitic?
Marcion created "new scriptures" for his followers. He referred to them by the titles he gave to the two component parts: The Gospel and The Apostle. To his own Bible he would later add a series of "Antitheses," which set out the incompatibility of law and gospel, of the Creator-Judge of the Old Testament and the merciful Father of the New Testament (who had nothing to do with either creation or judgment).
Answer for yourself: Do you not find it startling that the teaching that the Old Testament was replaced by a New Testament began with a man who also saw two Gods?
Stop and consider what I just said for a minute (Selah). Because Marcion saw "two Gods" he had need for only the revelation of the "good God" or the New Testament which served as a "replacement testament" to replace the Old Testament of the "Creator-Judge" God of the Old Testament.
Answer for yourself: Now, let me ask you do you believe in two Gods? How about three? Get the point?
The first idea of replacing "law" with "grace" came from one who denied the cardinal teaching of the Bible: "Hear O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is ONE!" So when people tell you that they are "not under the Law" I wonder if they do not believe in Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, who gave the Law in the first place.
The holy Scriptures to which the "Antitheses" served as an introduction inevitably included no part of the Old Testament; they consisted only of an edition of the Greek New Testament. Marcion did not call it a "New Testament", so far as we know, he may not have given any one title to the edition as a whole. He referred to it. as stated above, by the titles which he gave to its two component parts: Gospel and Apostle. Our main source for information about Marcion's Bible is Tertullian's treatise Against Marcion, written over a half century later (190 A.D.), when Marcion had been dead for some decades. Tertullian's response to Marcion is often hostile yet his factual data appears to be reliable.
Marcion's Gospel was an edition of the Gospel of Luke. The selection of Luke is in speculation even today, but more than likely owing to his affinity to Paul, he choose the Gospel of Luke because he was associated with Paul. Marcion nowhere mentioned Luke's name in connection with it; it was presented simply as the gospel of Christ. Its text was purged of those elements which were inconsistent with Marcion's understanding of the truth and which therefore, on his principles, must have been "added" by judaizing scribes. For example the birth of John the Baptist was omitted because it implied a connection between Yeshua and something that went before Him (remember to create a new religion one must have Yeshua not rely on anything in the past, but rather teach everything as if it were new and different). Yeshua brought nothing new with his ministry. He did not create a new religion. He did not do away with Judaism and give Christianity as its replacement. Marcion, as well as numerous others, tried valiantly to cover over the fact that Yeshua brought us nothing new and surely did not come to create a new religion to replace Judaism. If we are forced to see Yeshua quoting other teachers that were his forefathers then it is easy to see that he did not come to bring a new religion as we have incorrectly supposed.
In Marcion's gospel we find no reference the birth of Yeshua whom many feel was written later and added subsequent to original New Testament of Marcion. According to Marcion, Yeshua entered the world not by virgin birth but by a descent as supernatural as was his later ascension. Now pay attention. The material and doctrines that will be very important to the Roman Catholic Church as they will create a new religion later are not to be found among Marcion's Bible or his Gospel of Christ. This means that either the Roman Catholic Church added the accounts or Marcion deleted them from previously existing writings.
Answer for yourself: What were some of the passages not found in Marcion's Gospel which would later show up in the Roman Catholic version?
Answer for yourself: It is possible that the text of Luke which Marcion used as the basis for his Gospel was not identical with the text that has come down to us? More than likely "yes".
It may have been an earlier edition, lacking the first two chapters. Some consider it a "Proto-Luke". But even if the text which lay before Marcion did lack the first two chapters, it began at the latest with Luke 3:1, "In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar," and those are the words with which Marcion's Gospel began. But the material which follows immediately was unacceptable to him. The account of John the Baptist's ministry and his baptism of Yeshua implies some continuity between Yeshua and the old order. So does the genealogy of Luke 3:23-38, tracing Yeshua's ancestry back to Adam through David & Abraham. Thus it must be excluded! The temptation narrative (Luke 4:1-13) represents Yeshua quoting from Deuteronomy three times, as though it had authority in his eyes. This, for Marcion, was impossible. Surely Yeshua came to begin a new thing; a new Religion! Surely, as Marcion would have us believe, Yeshua did no longer consider Deuteronomy as a necessary Scripture. Marcion was wrong! Equally impossible for Marcion, was the idea that Yeshua, preaching in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30), should have claimed that his ministry was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. So, having begin his edition of the Gospel with Luke 3:1, Marcion went straight on to Luke 4:31 and continued: "Yeshua came down to Capernaum" as though he came down there and then from heaven, fully grown.
In place of "Thy Kingdom come" in his version of the Lord's Prayer (Luke 11:2), Marcion's Gospel had the interesting variation: "Let thy Holy Spirit come on us and cleanse us." He may have found this in the copy of Luke which served as the basis for his edition, or it may have been his own addition. If he added it himself, it is interesting that it would have found its way into the textual tradition of "orthodox" Christians for it is cited by the church father Gregory of Nyssa and Maqximus of Turin, and is the reading on one or two Greek manuscripts of the gospels.
The "old is good" (Luke 5:39) is omitted because it might be taken to imply approval of the Old Testament order and the religion of Yeshua. Possibly Yeshua did not come to replace Judaism with Christianity! Marcion could not entertain such an idea. The reference to Yeshua's mother and brothers could not be retained in Luke 8:19 (For Marcion Yeshua could not belong to any human family). It had to go. There are other peculiarities of Marcion's Gospel which can be explained with equal ease. It is simple; Marcion believed Yeshua was come to bring a replacement faith to Israel and anything that would show otherwise must be stricken from the record! Most Protestant and Catholic churches of today have been so influenced by Marcion that they ascribe to his basic premises! Such a shame.
Marcion's "The Apostle" was an edition of ten letters of Paul. The three Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus) were not included because he used his own Gospel for the basis of this "edition" and it did not contain them. The Chester Beatty codex (P46) of Paul's letters also does not include the same books. Also in Marcion "Apostle" the two letters to the Corinthians are combined as well as the letters to Thessalonica.
Now pay attention. The Marcionite order of Paul's letters is given below:
Notice the order of these letters in the Roman Catholic Church's Bible:
Answer for yourself: Did you notice that the book of Romans was placed first in the canon of the Roman Catholic Church?
Answer for yourself: Why did those who collected Marcion's documents change the order of his "New Testament" and place the book of Romans first following the gospels?
The Roman Church had to justify the shift in authority from Jerusalem to Rome and what better way to show it than let the book of Romans appear "first" as the first and trend-setting epistle in the New Testament. Also they added books which were not in Marcion's First New Testament.
Answer for yourself: Why? Or, did Marcion omit these books?
Answer for yourself: Who would benefit the most from the adding of these other books at 180 C.E.?
At the beginning of his Apostle Marcion placed the letter to the Galatians in first position. This was to dramatize the differences & opposites between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles. To Marcion the letter (Galatians) mounted a direct attack on the Jerusalem apostles, for it was at their instance (and rightly so), or at least by their agents, that attempts were being made to win Paul's Gentile coverts in Galatia over to a judaistic form of Christianity. Marcion considered this heresy. God did not! The remaining letters of Marcion's canon were arranged in descending order of length, the two letters of Corinthians being reckoned together as one composite letter and the two letter to the Thessalonians being treated in the same way.
Anything that appeared inconsistent with what he believed to be authentic Pauline teaching was regarded as corruption from an alien hand and was removed. The mention of Abraham as the prototype of all who are justified by faith (Gal. 3:6-9) could not be allowed to remain in his Canon because he could not allow to exist any connection between law and the gospel as in Gal. 3:15-25. Thus it most likely was removed from Romans chapter 4.
Now for the most startling information concerning Marcion. His edition of Romans lacked Romans 1:19-2:1; 3:21-4:25; and all of Romans 9-11 except Romans 10:1-4 and 11:33-36, not counting everything after Romans 14:23. The idea of establishing the law through faith (Rom. 3:31), the application of the story of Abraham in chapter 4, the grappling with the mystery of Israel's unbelief in chapters 9-11 (with their concentration of proof-texts from the Old Testament), were all incompatible with Paul's gospel as Marcion understood it. As for chapter 15, its opening section includes a general endorsement of the Christian value of the Old Testament scriptures (vv4) and a string of quotations designed to show that the Gentile mission was foreseen and validated by Old Testament writers (vv 8-12), while its closing paragraph (vv 25-33) bears witness to a concern on Paul's part for the church of Jerusalem which Marcion must found incredible, given his understanding of the relation between Paul and that church.
Now for a land mine! Notice conspicuously absent is Rom. 10:9-10 which states that "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Yeshua, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness: and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation".
Answer for yourself: Why would not Marcion have included such a "Pauline Dogma" since he was pro-Pauline himself?
The answer is simple. The text in question was not given as inspired by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and is not part of the original Gospel of Yeshua. It was written and added after Marcion and was not part of the Gospel or included in any Gospel writing as late as 140 years after Yeshua.
Answer for yourself: Did you hear what I said?
Answer for yourself: Don't you think it is about time you began to study to see what kind of religion you practice; the religion according to the teachings of Yeshua or according to the teachings of men?
Because of Marcion and men like him we have two competing Gospels today. To Marcion the "God who created all things" had nothing to do with the gospel; he was a different being from the God and Father of our Yeshua. In this we see Marcion's rejection of all the Old Testament (the Bible Yeshua used). To what extent Marcion's text differed from the one he had inherited and used for the basis of his gospel is not easily discerned. It would appear to have been copied substantially as before containing deletions of Jewish influence and authority, with very little actual additions by Marcion himself. Suffice to say he "dejudiazed" the Scriptures and destroyed the Hebrew roots of the early faith. What is problematic, as said before, is the absence in Marcion's Canon of many texts recognized as "Pauline" by toady's scholars, but which would most assuredly would have been included by Marcion if they had existed in his day (Rom. 10: 9-10).
Answer for yourself: What does that say for our "quick altar prayers" by which we give false security to repentant sinners who "repeat after me" and who we never see again?
The failure to include many passages we accept today as "Bible" by our churches can only mean one thing: they did not exist 140 years after Yeshua! Thus, many additions to the "inspired and infallible" Word of God would be added by Roman Catholics who followed. Thus, they would counter Marcion with their "own Bible" to counteract his Bible. They would write their own authority (Catholic) into the Bible (rework Marcion's Bible) to replace the authority of Jerusalem with the authority of Rome. The authority of Jerusalem was written out of the New Testament and replaced with the authority of Rome. The Catholic Church replaced the Jewish Synagogue. The Pagan Holidays replaced the Lord's Holy Days. Sunday replaced the Sabbath. Tithing to an "organization" or a "building" replaced "righteous giving to the needy." The Temple tax to support the "organization" (Temple) was replaced by robbing the saints of God's provision to them as distributed in the "poor tithe". The Noachide Laws for Gentile acceptance into Israel was replaced with Church Dogma of Augustine and Constantine. Martin Luther would shortly follow. The Lord's Supper was replaced with "Sunday cups and crackers". The Passover was replaced with Easter (fornication festival). Need I go on, because it does not stop here!
Marcion's Bible is of great significance to every modern Christian, because the power and authority of the many different Christian religions and denominations (over 2000) have been created from the words of the New Testament and not from the Old Testament, which was originally the authority for the followers of Christ for over 200 years.
Answer for yourself: Now that you know this, do you ever wonder what was added in these Marcion and Catholic documents which comprise the New Testament which neither Yeshua or the earliest Jewish followers of Yeshua, those who knew him best, could not accept nor follow?
Continue your studies on this web site and you will find out… Shalom.