Marcion: Was New Testament Jesus' message founded upon Anti-Semitism/Anti-Judaism?

[Kiki52]

I hope the title is not going to offend anyone. That is not my purpose, and I hope no one will be offended I do hope though people can keep this discussion positive and that people will respect each other.

Marcion was a priest that was around in the 2st century who basically created what is known as the New Testament today, but it was edited by what would become the Roman Catholic church. Marcion was the earliest known person to have created what was going to be the foundation of the New Testament and ideas such as Replacement Theology, Jesus nailing the Mosaic Law on the cross to save our sins, the idea of grace, the abolition of circumcision and kosher food laws, the idea of sola scriptura, and the idea of salvation for the Gentiles came from Marcion. But many people like Irenaeus said he was a heretic but Marcion was the person who started it all.

But Marcion, however, was against Judaism and everything it stood for. He was a Gnostic in a sense, but not a sense because he was not a person who believed or did anything mystical or wierd initation practices only to certain adepts like when you hear the world Gnostic no. He was the first to invent the idea of sola scriptura which basically is like what some old time Protestants are, rely solely on scriptures and nothing like wierd visions, speaking in tounges, or magic things.
Marcion was against Judaism because he saw Jesus' father whom Jesus referred to as a different god than the God of Judaism, which is called YHWH. I think Marcion even refered to Jesus' father as "God the Stranger" because his God was a strange and foreign God who tries to oust the God of the Jews. Marcion believed the God of the Jews is evil, and Jesus preached from the Jews point of view in a sense a pagan (foreign) god.

It's a long story so here is the website here.
But what do you think? If this is true, do you think then that Jesus was the anti-Judaism in all ways, shape, and form?

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Itha...b.html#Messiah

[Zenith Darksea]

You see, the problem with this is that it's actually not true what you say about the Marcionite canon being the foundation for the modern Bible.

Marcion was born in ca. 100 AD in Sinope, and after having a falling-out with his father (who was also bishop of Sinope) he travelled to Rome in 139 AD. He was beginning to develop his own version of theology (quite different to Orthodox Christian theology) in which, as you say, he viewed the Jewish God of the Old Testament as evil.

As such, Marcion developed a canon of Scripture (not, incidentally, the first ever) that totally excluded all Jewish texts from the Old Testament and only included ten epistles and one Gospel in the New Testament (that of Luke). Marcion was promptly excommunicated and returned to Asia Minor where he started to found Marcionite churches, but of course the Orthodox Christians strongly condemned him.

Now, it's true that Marcion's heretical canon of Scripture inspired Orthodox Christians to start making clear exactly what texts were Scriptural and which weren't (this would culminate in the 4th century), but it is not true that Marcion was the first person to say what was Scriptural and what was not, and it is not true that the Christian Bible as we have it today was in any way, shape or form based on Marcion's canon. Orthodox Christians were already reading a Bible that was basically the same as the one today (although it's true that not everyone had all the texts, but that doesn't matter, because it is from the Church that God reveals doctrine, not just the Bible), they just hadn't tried to make it official in the way that Marcion did.

The point is that Jesus wasn't opposed to the Jews, and that Marcion had blatantly misunderstood (and there was probably an element of alienation from his father involved as well) Christian theology.

[basics]

Kiki52,

Jesus was never against Judaism, rather what Judaism had become. Yet when He did come and was amongst them they couldn't see beyond their noses because these were steeped in traditions that had multiplied over the centuries despite prophetic witness, who He actually was.

Their Scriptures told of nothing else but Him coming and surprisingly they know enough that they still await Him but not in the form He did come, rather as a figure in the mould of David. Despite His pleadings that the Kingdom of God was a Spiritual place they still see the worldly land that is Israel to be where that Davidic kingdom will be.

This was the point of argument between them and Him. He knew what they couldn't see because He by ordination made their Scriptures literally as God before the world was because He was the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world. And what was already ordained must come to pass and it did. I think the Old Testament bears witness to that.

Once into the New Testament things get a little difficult because rather than man seeing it as a continuum of the Old even though the Covenant no longer bears legality some think that it's disolving makes it at odds with the New hence the opposition from certain quarters. But the writer to the book of Hebrews makes that opposition dead in the water.

He is at pains to describe the link, the necessary link, between the two, taking great care in defining everything that brings together what was shadow and type before up to date in the reality of Jesus Christ fulfilling all that was written in the Old. Apart from being to our benefit, the book is primarily for the benefit of the Jews.

Now the writer of that book was no less inspired by God than those who wrote the Old Testament but because that of the Old was shrouded in mystery that mystery is now revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord. It brings together all the strands necessary for the Jew to realise who Jesus is. But not only the Jew for by their then disbelief we Gentiles can share in the promises then made.

Now whether Marcion was right or wrong is of no consequence for the simple reason that man cannot save anyone. Nor can any church. At best we can deliver the message that Jesus Christ saves because not only is He Messiah and Saviour, He is also God and it is God who justifies. What men have done with that message and what they still do does not defer God from building His church. That goes on as I write.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the only mediator between man and God and only He could take away the barriers that made communion certain. Not only certain, but as though they had never existed in the first place. Through His blood is the bridge built between sinner and God yet without God the Father drawing men to the Son none will ever know that unless hearing the message that is the power of God to save.

If the reader has any doubt then read the book to the Hebrews for it leaves no stone unturned regarding Jesus Christ, and if I may say, the ecclesia. Many have said that it is the greatest of all within Scripture and on that I am inclined to agree.

[Dracula]

Jesus came as son of the jewish god,whom they(the jews) had forgotten and didn't recognise any more,by the words of Jesus himself in Scr . He said "I came to fullfill the law,not to abolish it " . Kind of a good and bad jews .
Everything else is specullation .

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

Marcion was a priest that was around in the 2st century who basically created what is known as the New Testament today, but it was edited by what would become the Roman Catholic church.

Wow - some remarkable distortions of history there. Everything in that sentence is pretty much garbage, apart from the fact that Marcion lived in the Second Century.

Firstly, he wasn't just a priest, he was a bishop, though more importantly he was a heretical bishop. Marcion broke away from the rest of Christianity and founded his own separate branch of the faith based on his radically Dualist theology. Like the Gnostics, Marcion believed there was not one God, but two; one good and the other evil. He associated the Evil God with the God of the Jews and the Old Testament and taught that Jesus came to reveal the true Good God to us.

To say he "basically created what is known as the New Testament today" is ridiculous. Marcion's canon was completely different to anything like the Bible that emerged in the Third Century. To begin with, it totally excised the entire Old Testament. Of the canonical New Testament books, Marcion accepted only eleven texts: a cut-down and altered version of Luke and ten of Paul's epistles. To pretend that this tiny eleven book canon is "basically ... the New Testament today" is totally ridiculous.

As is then saying "but it was edited by what would become the Roman Catholic church". More total nonsense. Marcion's canon wasn't edited - it was rejected. It was rejected because it denied a canonical place to up to 16 further books that were to eventually find their way into the Bible, including the accepted text of Luke, all of Matthew, Mark and John, the rest of the epistles and Revelation.

To say that Marcion came up with the New Testament and the Church just edited it is distorted garbage of the first order. And before you get any funny ideas, no I'm not a Catholic or a Christian of any kind. I'm just someone who thinks if you're going to bother writing about history you have a responsibility not to distort it beyond all recognition.

[Marcion]

Heya folks, just here to clear up a few things about my teachings (kidding)

As is then saying "but it was edited by what would become the Roman Catholic church". More total nonsense. Marcion's canon wasn't edited - it was rejected. It was rejected because it denied a canonical place to up to 16 further books that were to eventually find their way into the Bible, including the accepted text of Luke, all of Matthew, Mark and John, the rest of the epistles and Revelation.

Yes, he only had one gospel... and it's about 90% identical to the modern Gospel of Luke. Most Christian scholars probably claim that he edited Luke's for his own purposes, I know Mead and some other scholars claim that his and Luke's gospels were devised concurrently from a single earlier source material. There's a little evidence that Marcion's may have actually come before Luke, and the modern version is indeed the Catholic-friendly version of his gospel. Since no one actually knows when either of them were first written, it's mostly up in the air.

To call Marcionism anti-Semitic makes little sense to me. Yes, he rejected the Old Testament, and stressed Christianity and Judaism were two distinct religions. He would have claimed Yaweh was inferior to the God of the New Testament, as he did indeed exhibit many traits that contrast sharply with the loving God of Christ (like telling the Hebrews to massacre cities of their enemies). This is frankly a pretty logical solution to a very real problem with Christian canon, one I'm pretty amazed has been so easily glossed over. Marcion of Sinope was never at any point said to have encouraged ill will or violence towards the Jews, not in all the dogged attacks by apologists and anti-heretical propagandists on him in the hundreds of years following his life and death. Plenty of people today consider the Jewish religion to be false, but this does not make them anti-Semites.

It's also iffy to call him "Gnostic" since about the only thing he had in common with the other major Gnostics what that he was a (sort of) Dualist (it's unclear to me if he thought the Hebrew God was real or not). He never made any of their far out pseudo-Platonic claims about the origin of the world, he did not hold Socrates with equal esteem as Jesus, and he was not an esoteric. His ideas were a lot simpler and less "mystical" than those typical of the morass of Gnostic tradition, just because he had an idea in common makes him no more a Gnostic than it makes any Christian a Zoroastrian.

[Icefrisco]

I had just seen a tv program that had a Catholic priest talking about how the Bible was written from an anti-Semitic point of view and that the church had taken an anti-Semitic approach because of this. He talked about how the church was righting wrongs and how priests should filter out anti-Semitism in the bible. It was interesting but I dont know if he is a common priest. I dont recall most priests criticizing the bible.

Jesus was never against Judaism, rather what Judaism had become.

Jesus was just a religious reformer and his earliest followers still went to temple and mixed with other Jews. Christianity originally appears to have been just a sect of Judaism.

[Lord Consul]

I doubt he was a common priest, Icefrisco. His deacon/prior/bishop would tear out the skin of a "common" priest if he ever dared to speak that. Considering that the Vatican has been trying to mend the perpetually shaky relation between Judaism and Christianity, such comments wouldn't be easily forgiven.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is always watchful, and it punishes severely all priests who deviate from "mainstream" Catholicism.

Although I sense many Catholics would like to hang me for this, I must say the Church is very - very - ruthless with dissenters.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

I doubt he was a common priest, Icefrisco. His deacon/prior/bishop would tear the skin of a "common" priest if he ever dared to speak that. Considering that the Vatican has been trying to mend the perpetually shaky relation between Judaism and Christianity, such comments would be easily forgiven.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is always watchful, and it punishes severely all priests who deviate from "mainstream" Catholicism.

Although I sense many Catholics would like to hang me for this, but I must say the Church is very - very - ruthless with dissenters.

I think you're overstating things quite considerably. The idea that anti-Semitism has at least some of its roots in the gospels is hardly radical and simply saying so is not "dissent". The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would have no grounds for pulling any priest into line for saying something that is widely recognised both within and outside the Church.

A quick Google found this article by a Catholic priest saying precisely what Icefrisco attributes to his priest. Fr Raymond E. Brown doesn't seem too worried about the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith knocking on his door for stating historical facts.

[Lord Consul]

Well, Marxist priest Leonardo Boff (now unfrocked, he's presently one of Chomsky's intellectual pets) was summoned by the Congregation three times for clarification.

The first warning came not due to his connections with the Theology of Liberation, but because of a sermon he made about Anti-Semitism and the bible.

The congregation was headed by Cardinal Ratzinger at the time, so its decisions were not unexpected.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

Well, Marxist priest Leonardo Boff (now unfrocked, he's presently one of Chomsky's intellectual pets) was summoned by the Congregation three times for clarification.

The first warning came not due to his connections with the Theology of Liberation, but because of a sermon he made about Anti-Semitism and the bible.

What did he say in this speech, exactly? Because the article I've linked to above shows that saying that anti-Semitism has its roots in the NT depiction of the Jews is not only commonplace, it's also unremarkable. And it's hardly heretical. My understanding is that Boff's "crime" was his objection to the "supercessionist" teaching of the Church: ie that the Church supercedes Israel as the 'people of God'.

[Lord Consul]

IIRC, it happened around 1986. 21 years ago.

Anyway, I've read the article and realized that such comments are not as rare as it once were, and that such remarks are now unexceptional.

I guess my mind was still in the 80s.

[basics]

There are two aspects surrounding the life of Jesus and his opponents during those days that perhaps are not but should be appreciated and both concern the men from whom His opposition came.

Firstly, they were for the main part Roman appointees thus making their existence, positions and ambition subject to Roman approval. And secondly, they were effectively the voice of Judaism not just in Jerusalem and it's surrounds but the overall Jewish world at large.

As long as they kept within the bounds of both they had for the most part a comfortable life, comfortable that is until a certain John the Baptist made an appearance. From then on the life of these men took on a new meaning for the comfort they then felt soon would disappear.

For their first time the people with whom or over whom they held sway saw things from a different angle. They were being publically exposed not for their Romanness but their Judaism and it wasn't coming from rebellion that could easily be extinguished but a source unfamiliar to their race for many years.

A prophet was amongst them and all they could do for the present was take it on the chin hoping that something or someone would take out this menace especially as they themselves were caught between a rock and a hard place. Little did they know what else was around the corner. Another Roman appointee was to take care of John.

Alas Jesus was now on the scene continuing, and more, what John had begun with better words and higher ambition. So it was not to be expected that they rumbled on about getting rid of Him, after all had they not seen John off?

Their biggest problem was however that this man unlike John although condemnatory of them had much in the way of ancient Scripture to back Him up and combined with the signs and miracles He performed they saw the effect this had on the people, even in Jerusalem. He wasn't just individualising them, rather the system that through them Judaism had become.

They as the leaders, the voice of the establishment, became what the Bible calls the Jews, not as individuals but as a tradition, a system that no longer held to what it taught. So they sought of a way, any way to have Him killed. They conspired the reason and appealed to Roman sensitivity for the right outcome and how could the Romans not listen. Were they not their own?

Now the religious opposition was, in the name of these Jewish leaders the Law. The Romans being rather fond of law themselves understood well what the flouting of that could mean whether Jewish or Roman and so the scene was set that, unknown to them at the time, there was no alternative, and God was in effect fulfilling the prophecies of old.

Therefore, to me when the Bible talks of the Jews concerning opposition to Christ and His church, the reference is not to each individual Jew, rather the system which under Law, defied any Jew to go into what Christianity declared to be outside of it. We find this later as the infant church grew especially in places where Jews were the first to receive the Gospel.

The resultant anti-Semitism did therefore not begin at the door of Jesus Christ but the misinterpretation of Scripture that for some reason saw each and every Jew condemned as being a Christ killer. Today, some two thousand years on there are those who still hold to such thoughts or have such thoughts as the basis for their own hatreds.

[Old Geezer]

If someone claims to be a christian and is anti-semitic or anti-Irish or anti any people group, don't assume that that person is a christian, i.e. "in christ".

[basics]

Old Geezer,

When we consider that the body of Christ consists of men and women who were once Jews or Gentiles your statement carries great truth. It mattered/ matters not to God what they once were/are, for all were in their own ways sinners but now are not thanks to saving grace.

We who are in Christ Jesus must never forget that we too were part of that world that knew not God so therefore to hate the sin that separates us is one thing but never to hate the sinner. Perhaps it was Jews who demanded His death but it was us Gentiles who carried it out yet we didn't need to.

Indeed were we not all guilty of unGodliness, all equal in that respect before God, until that is He made provision to the Jew first and then us? Perhaps that is why thankfully it is God who justifies and not man, for look how easy it is to blame another for our own shortcomings.

[Kiki52]

It is pretty cool that you named yourself Marcion. Did you do it just because of this thread or did you do it much earlier than when I first posted this thread?

It was pretty interesting. I found something strange that reminded me of Marcion and his teachings in the movie I am Legend. I will not put any spoilers for the movie here, but there is one scene where Will Smith questions the existence of God because (in the movie) 90% of humanity dies, then the zombies kill even more so it's prolly like only 1% of humanity lives. And the movie hinted that it was God's Plan that he would need to kill all of humanity and save a small remnent, who live in a small monastic community that honors God, country (USA) and family.

How this movie reminded me of Marcion is that I myself when I read a junior Catholic bible, long before I ever heard of Marcion I opened it up to a random page in the old testament and it told how the ancient Hebrews slaughtered people and stuff. I couldn't understand after that. So why would God send plagues and cause wars to kill people en masse?

I think if you think the Bible in an intellectual perspective, Marcion (ironically... the name of the poster) is right. I cannot say for certain that Marcion the real man IS correct, but a person who thinks of the Bible of the OT vs NT from a purely logical perspective would think that YHWH and God the Father (Jesus' father) are two different Gods. I too am surprised Catholic canon has no easy awnsers for this, but I am glad you other posters provided reasons for the transition between Old Testament to New Testament.

Marcion (the poster), I am glad you also told about how Marcion was not really a Gnostic. When people think of Gnostics, they tend to think of these Devil worshipping Templars or something like it's straight out of the Da Vinci code.

[Marcion]

It is pretty cool that you named yourself Marcion. Did you do it just because of this thread or did you do it much earlier than when I first posted this thread?

Ha ha, no I registered before I saw this thread. I mostly just like the name.

Marcion (the poster), I am glad you also told about how Marcion was not really a Gnostic. When people think of Gnostics, they tend to think of these Devil worshipping Templars or something like it's straight out of the Da Vinci code.

Maybe you mean the Cathars? The Templars weren't really heretics so much as they got on the bad side of Philip IV. And none of the Gnostics (or most of the people branded heretics) were really "Devil worshippers" in any capacity.

I advise you and any Christian to learn about your religion's history. Not from your local priest, or TV, from a real scholar. There are lots of interesting books on the subject.

[basics]

Marcion,

So who are these real scholars that you write of? I am a Christian and have never encountered a scholar who could put the Bible into real living faith. Christianity is never about academia, rather revelation given by a real living God.

[Marcion]

Marcion,

So who are these real scholars that you write of? I am a Christian and have never encountered a scholar who could put the Bible into real living faith. Christianity is never about academia, rather revelation given by a real living God.

I was referring to the history of the church itself, and a search for "early christianity" at the bookseller of your choice is a good place to start. My own academic interests have been mainly in Gnosticism, but Dr. Bart Ehrman seems to give a pretty good look at the big picture during the development of dogmatism and "living faith" as you understand it. I'm not saying this because I think your beliefs are wrong and you need to be "enlightened", I just think people should be aware of where it really comes from.

[basics]

Marcion,

So if I am on my knees begging for God's help and suddenly a warm glow flows through my body, not only changing what I once believed to what I now believe that comes from the writings of a scholar? That night after night for over twenty years Scripture is rolled before my eyes even in my sleep for that is how I learned the word of God? A scholar can simulate that? I don't think so.