Gospel of Marcion

Church Fathers wrote, and Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman agree, that Marcion edited Luke to fit his own theology, Marcionism.[8][9] The late 2nd-century writer Tertullian stated that Marcion, "expunged [from the Gospel of Luke] all the things that oppose his view... but retained those things that accord with his opinion".[10]

According to this view, Marcion eliminated the first two chapters of Luke concerning the nativity, and began his gospel at Capernaum making modifications to the remainder suitable to Marcionism. The differences in the texts below highlight the Marcionite view that Jesus did not follow the Prophets and that the earth is evil.

Late 19th- and early 20th-century theologian Adolf von Harnack, in agreement with the traditional account of Marcion as revisionist, theorized that Marcion believed there could be only one true gospel, all others being fabrications by pro-Jewish elements, determined to sustain worship of Yahweh; and that the true gospel was given directly to Paul the Apostle by Christ himself, but was later corrupted by those same elements who also corrupted the Pauline epistles. In this understanding, Marcion saw the attribution of this gospel to Luke the Evangelist as a fabrication, so he began what he saw as a restoration of the original gospel as given to Paul.[11] Von Harnack wrote that:

For this task he did not appeal to a divine revelation, any special instruction, nor to a pneumatic assistance [...] From this it immediately follows that for his purifications of the text - and this is usually overlooked - he neither could claim nor did claim absolute certainty.[11]

Biblical scholars as varied as Johann Salomo Semler, Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, Albert Schwegler, Albrecht Ritschl, John Knox,[12]^:6[13] Paul-Louis Couchoud, John Townsend, Matthias Klinghardt,[13] Joseph B. Tyson,[14] Jason BeDuhn, and David Trobisch[15] have dissented from the traditional view that the Gospel of Marcion was a revision of the Gospel of Luke (this traditional view may be called the "patristic hypothesis"). They argue that the Gospel of Luke is either a later redaction of the Gospel of Marcion ("Schwegler hypothesis"), or that both gospels are redactions of some prior gospel (a "proto-Luke") with Marcion's text being closer to the original ("Semler Hypothesis").[13] Several arguments have been put forward in favor of those two latter view.

Firstly, there are many passages found in Marcion's gospel that seem to contradict his own theology, which is unexpected if Marcion was simply removing passages from Luke that he didn't agree with. Matthias Klinghardt has argued:

The main argument against the traditional view of Luke’s priority to [Marcion] relies on the lack of consequence of his redaction: Marcion presumably had theological reasons for the alterations in "his" gospel which implies that he pursued an editorial concept. This, however, cannot be detected. On the contrary, all the major ancient sources give an account of Marcion’s text, because they specifically intend to refute him on the ground of his own gospel. Therefore, Tertullian concludes his treatment of [Marcion]: "I am sorry for you, Marcion: your labour has been in vain. Even in your gospel Christ Jesus is mine" (4.43.9).[16]^:7 (emphasis in original)

Secondly, Marcion himself claimed that the gospel he used was original, whereas the canonical Luke was a falsification.[16]^:8 The accusations of adulteration are therefore mutual:

Tertullian, Epiphanius, and other ancient witnesses, all of whom knew and accepted the same Gospel of Luke we know, felt not the slightest doubt that the "heretic" had shortened and "mutilated" the canonical Gospel; and on the other hand, there is every indication that the Marcionites denied this charge and accused the more conservative churches of having falsified and corrupted the true Gospel which they alone possessed in its purity. These claims are precisely what we would have expected from the two rival camps, and neither set of them deserves much consideration.[7]^:78

Thirdly, John Knox and Joseph Tyson have shown that, of the material that is omitted from Marcion's gospel but included in canonical Luke, the vast majority (79.5-87.2%) is unique to Luke, with no parallel in the earlier gospels of Mark and Matthew.[7]^:109 [17]^:87 They argue that this result is entirely expected if canonical Luke is the result of adding new material to Marcion's gospel or its source, but that it is very much unexpected if Marcion removed material from Luke.

Some proponents of the priority of Marcion's gospel have explored the implications of their view that the gospel of Marcion is not a revision of the gospel of Luke for the broader synoptic problem.

In 2008, Matthias Klinghardt proposed that Marcion's gospel was based on the Gospel of Mark, that the Gospel of Matthew was an expansion of the Gospel of Mark with reference to the Gospel of Marcion, and that the Gospel of Luke was an expansion of the Gospel of Marcion with reference to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. In Klinghardt's view, this model elegantly accounts for the double tradition— material shared by Matthew and Luke, but not Mark— without appealing to purely hypothetical documents, such as the Q source.[16]^{:21–22, 26} In his 2015 book, Klinghardt changed his opinion compared to his 2008 article. In his 2015 book, he considers that the gospel of Marcion precedes and influenced the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).[18]

Research from 2018 suggests that the Gospel of Marcion may have been the original two-source gospel based on Q and Mark.[19]

Matthias Klinghardt's 2015 Marcion hypothesis, an absolute Marcionian priority, applied to the synoptic gospels (Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien, p. 191).

Some proponents of the priority of Marcion's gospel have explored the implications of their view for the broader synoptic problem.

In his 2015 book, Klinghardt changed his opinion compared to his 2008 article. In his 2015 book, he considers that the gospel of Marcion precedes and influenced the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).[18]

In his 2014 book Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, Markus Vinzent considers, like Klinghardt, that the gospel of Marcion precedes the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). He believes that the Gospel of Marcion influenced the four gospels. Vinzent differs with both BeDuhn and Klinghardt in that he believes the Gospel of Marcion was written directly by Marcion: Marcion's gospel was first written as a draft not meant for publication which was plagiarized by the four canonical gospels, this plagiarism angered Marcion who saw the purpose of his text distorted and made him publish his gospel along with a preface and 10 letters of Paul.[20][21][22]

The Marcion priority also implies a model of the late dating of the New Testament Gospels to the 2nd century - a thesis that goes back to David Trobisch, who, in 1996 in his habilitation thesis accepted in Heidelberg,[23] presented the conception or thesis of an early, uniform final editing of the New Testament canon in the 2nd century.[24]