Marcion
Marcion (c 84-160 CE), born to the bishop of Sinope, was condemned a heretic and excommunicated in July of 144. In his teachings, he opposed the Jewish scriptures to new Christian teachings going so far as to claim that the God of the Hebrew scriptures was an evil, creator God and could not therefore be the same God as the father of Jesus Christ. In addition, he proclaimed a docetic view of Christ, claiming that Jesus could not be human, for the evil creator God created flesh. The role of Jesus, in fact, was to liberate Christians from the power of the creator God. He thought that only Paul understood the true teachings of Jesus Christ and accordingly formed the first canonical list of Christian scriptures. It consisted of the ten letters of Paul and the Gospel of Luke, which Marcion believed to have been written by Paul. Thus, Marcion did contribute positively to the history of Christianity by providing the idea of a New Testament canon and forcing the orthodox church to establish its own list of texts. Marcion succeeded in building his own church which survived in the East until the fifth century.
Jennifer M. Brom
Is the Lord's Prayer in Your Bible?
Issue Date: September/October 2000
By David W. Daniels
A century after Christ there was a man named Marcion. He pretended to be a Christian, but his beliefs did not match the Bible. He did not believe in God the Father and God the Son (the Lord Jesus Christ). He taught people that there was an evil "creator/warrior god" of the Old Testament, and a nice, "good-guy god" of the New Testament.
But the Bible is clear about the Godhead. So Marcion decided to take the gospel of Luke and remove what he didn't like. One passage he changed was the Lord's Prayer, found in Luke 11:2-4. The words in bold are the words Marcion took out:
| Luke 11:2-4 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, [Our] Father [which art in heaven], Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. [Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth]. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; [but deliver us from evil]. |
Even a satanist or other occultist can pray Marcion's prayer, because it leaves out the Father in heaven. People can fill in the blank as they wish. "Father" is a term used by Buddhists, occultists, and even satanists. But there is only one "Father which art in heaven."
Get out an NIV or other so-called "modern" version. There, in Luke 11, is Marcion's mutilated prayer! When the Alexandrian "scholars" were making their own perversion of the Scriptures, they ended up using Marcion's words, not the Lord's.
If that is in your Bible, what else is in there?