Marcionite Tendencies
Somewhere along the way you may have heard that “A text without a context is a pretext for a prooftext.” How many of us, however, have actually entertained whether or not we, even unknowingly, have mishandled parts of Scripture because we’ve taken them out of context?
Back in the mid-second century there were a handful of voices that are well known for their influential teachings and writings concerning the Christian faith. One of these powerful voices was from a man named Marcion.
Marcion was familiar with Christianity from an early age. But, somewhere along the way he developed anti-semitic views and came to hold a dualistic perspective of life.1
During the latter part of the emperor Hadrian’s reign [c. AD 137-138], Marcion relocated to Rome to be involved with the Christian community there. However, by the year AD 144 Marcion was officially expelled from the community, and ever since has carried the label “heretic” by mainstream Christians. Despite being excommunicated, Marcion remained in Rome where he established an “enduring ecclesiastical organization,” which persisted until the 5th century.2
There are two main reasons why Marcion was, and is, considered a heretic. (1) Because Marcion believed the material world was evil, he then drew the conclusion that the God who created it must be evil as well. Therefore, Elohim, must be a different God than the loving and merciful God Jesus represents. He considered Elohim a demiurge, inferior to the “Supreme Father” that Jesus speaks of.3
(2) Based on this presupposition, Marcion constructed the first canon, or a list of “scriptural” books. “He held that the OT [sic] had been superseded so thoroughly by the NT [sic] that it was now obsolete.”4 Therefore, his entire list of Scriptures consisted only of parts of Luke and ten of Paul’s epistles. Moreover, “Marcion argued that the canon should be expunged of everything ‘Jewish’.”5
Most Christians today would agree that these teachings are heretical – and rightly so. While we largely disagree with Marcion theoretically, many of us unknowingly maintain a “Marcionite tendency” in our orthopraxy; namely, we’ve taken Jesus, and even the Apostles out of their 1st century, second Temple period, Hebraic context.
Consider the account of the woman with the issue of blood [Luke 8:43-48]. When she touched Jesus’ garment, she deliberately grabbed a certain part of it – his tzitzit [tassel]. She demonstrated her belief in a Messianic prophecy that the Messiah would have healing in his “wings” [Malachi 4:2]. The Hebrew word kanaph is translated “wings” in Malachi 4:2 and “corner” in Numbers 15:38, which describes where the four separate tzitzit should hang.
How much more depth do these details add to this account? How would one gather these insights except by keeping our Rabbi Jesus and this Jewish woman in their Hebraic context?
One of the ways Marcion took the Scriptures out of their context was by “expunging everything Jewish” from them. It was inevitable that heretical teaching would subsequently develop.
We would do well to correct our tendency toward the same so we can rightly handle the word of truth. After all, if we believe that God our Savior is intentional in what he does, then it is no minor detail that he sent his Son into the Hebraic milieu of first century Palestine and Second Temple Galilee and Judea.
1 Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, Vol. 1 (New York: HarperCollins, 1984), 61. Dualism, simply put, taught that the material world was “evil” and the spiritual world was “good.”
2Harold W. Attridge, “Christianity from the Destruction of the Temple to Constantine’s Adoption of the New Religion: 70-312 C.E.” In Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development. Hershel Shanks, ed. (Washington D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1992), 173.
3Gonzales, 61. A "demiurge" is an emanation from the Supreme Being considered to be the originator of the Sinaitic Law and the antithesis of Jesus in Marcionite and Manichean thinking.
4 David Ewert, A General Introduction to the Bible: From Ancient Tablets to Modern Translations (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983), 24.
5James H. Charlesworth, “Christians and Jews in the First Six Centuries.” In Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development. Hershel Shanks, ed. (Washington D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1992), 316-317.
