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But Justin Martyr in First Apology wrote about Marcion and his doctrine while Marcion himself was alive, and never at all mention that Marcion used any part of gLuke. In fact, according to Justin Martyr, Marcion's doctrine, God and Christ was in direct variance and contradiction with the scriptures in Justin's own time.

"First Apology" LVIII It would appear to me that no part of gLuke in its present form could have supported the doctrine and the Gods of Marcion. The notion that Marcion used gLuke now seems preposterous since Marcion's theology is diametrically opposed to gLuke as we have it today.

neilgodfrey

Irenaeus and Tertullian make claims about it that lead us to infer it was in some ways similar to Luke. So we can expect Marcion's gospel to have contained at least some passages unique to Luke. When Tertullian and Epiphanius discuss specific differences in the treatment of specific pericopes in Marcion's gospel and canonical Luke we can infer that the two gospels at least shared some form of that pericope. So by comparing these opponents of Marcion we can fairly assume we can have some idea of the overall appearance of Marcion's gospel. And often where Tertullian speaks generally of differences in some verses, Epiphanius gets specific about what the difference actually is.

Tyson revisits some of Knox's statistics and re-works them to test his hypothesis that both Marcion and the redactor of canonical Luke were each working from a common (pre-canonical Lukan; pre-Marcionite) text. He rejects the idea that Marcion was working with canonical Luke (summary posted here.)

Some of the material unique to Luke, notably the genealogy and birth narratives, and the resurrection appearances which culminate in an affirmation that Christ was the fulfilment of the Jewish scriptures, can be seen as designed for the purpose of targeting Marcionism -- if we can allow for the gospel to have been composed at least as late as around 120 c.e. But by setting it as late as the time of Marcionism, we have an historical situation that can explain specific features of our canonical Luke that distinguish it from earlier gospels.

Neil Godfrey

Gamera

But clearly Justin is being tendentious in how he characterized Marcion, and we should not take it at face value.

My reading of Marcion is that he saw the God of the Hebrew Scriptures so inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus, that there was no point in trying to reconcile them (a position which by the way I happen to hold). However historical Christianity, represented by Justin, had already gone down the path of glossing the OT in terms of the NT, and seeing Jesus as a continuation of Jaweh, however inconsistent that may be on its face. Therefore, Justin understood and characterized Marcion in the terms he did.

I suspect that if Marcion were here to tell us his side of it, it might be something like (reconstructing as I am from the animadversions of his critics), that the God of the OT was a "projection" by the real God in order to lead the Hebrew people toward the teachings of Christ in a manner that in their primitive state they could understand. So that God defeats their enemies, makes them rich, etc. etc. , just like a Bronze/Iron Age God was supposed to, but with an ulterior motive.

I think the thesis in the OP raises an important issue that is subject to further study, and that is trying to reconstruct how and when the Jesus movement got situated as part of a larger context in the Hebrew scriptures. Clearly, it did not during Paul's ministry, since the gentiles he was converting probably never heard of the Hebrew Scriptures, much less read them. So the gospel he preached absolutely didn't require the OT context.

The shift from Pauline emphasis on the Jesus narrative, to a larger narrative that includes the OT, seems to me something not well understood or studied.

And Marcion may well hold the key because he seems to be at the cusp of this changeover.