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Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle

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Some Bible "scholars" believe that the scriptures are simple, direct accounts of what happened. They seem to favor early as possible dates for each of the New Testament scriptures. Acting as believers first and historians a distant second, they present history to suit their beliefs.

It is, therefore, an eye opener when a scholar suspects that both Acts and the canonical version of the Gospel of Luke were not written until about 120-125 C.E. and with the teachings of Marcion fully in mind (such a date might mean some of the surviving Gnostic texts were also written before Acts and the canonical Gospel of Luke). Tyson makes a credible argument for such a hypothesis. In doing so, he reveals a good deal about what is known about Marcion and his form of Christianity, as well as about how proto-orthodox Christians composed their stories so as to bring together Jewish Christianity and Pauline Christianity. Had they not succeeded, Christianity would have been far different than it came to be, without an Old Testament in the Bible, with a radically different understanding of God and with a much more substantial place for Paul's letters.

Tyson also raises questions about whether much of the dating of the New Testament texts has not been rigorous and instead of based on historical study has been based to large extent on conveniences of the beliefs of scholars. That recalled for me Walter Bauer's classic Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity which conservative Christian scholars have sought to discredit due to suggestions that significant Gnostic Christian activity may have preceded the writing of many of the New Testament scriptures. This calls to mind Elaine Pagels claim in The Origin of Satan that the four New Testament gospels were "chosen not necessarily because they were the earliest or most accurate accounts of Jesus' life and teaching but precisely because they could form the basis of church communities".

Like the Gnostic Christians, Marcionite Christianity was a serious challenge to proto-orthodox Christianity and one that the orthodox church has done its best to remove the traces of. Scholars like Tyson and Elaine Pagels who are able to examine history without thick lenses of creedal belief can't eliminate the need to hypothesize but they can at least make sense of the development of early Christianity in a way that doesn't depend on naive interpretation. After reading this book you will appreciate that the dating of the New Testament texts is hardly a done deal and that, just as now, it was human nature back then to carefully construct documents so as to persuade. Of course, to convince you otherwise is one way to persuade you.

Tyson has built upon the work of his own teacher John Knox in a scholarly presentation that is, nonetheless, accessible to lay readers. Tyson avoids the specious appeals that Bart Ehrman has unfortunately succumbed to (e.g Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. He also presents a respectable alternative to the early dating assumptions of an evangelical scholar such as Darrell Bock (e.g. The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities) Tyson's "Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggles" seems to be a responsible and trustworthy effort that doesn't hide it assumptions but does reveal a great deal about early Christianity and the construction of scriptures.

My avocation, inter alia, is studying the Bible. I have always thought the Old Testament is more interesting from an exegetical standpoint because it tends to be more numinous than the often conflicting writings of the New Testament. However, Marcion and Luke-Acts provided me with a particular perspective of the New Testament and the impetus behind the canonization of certain early works. The thesis of this essay--that Luke/Acts is a response to Marcionite Christianity--is well presented and worthy of consideration by any serious student or hobbyists like me. Anything written about the origins and reasons for particular books in the New Testament and their approaches is, of course, somewhat problematic because of the lack of autographs and necessary reliance on second and third century(or later)writers, but Tyson does a good job of summarizing a major hypothesis in a readable and compelling way. The book is well done: good footnotes, good analysis of pericopes, and good summaries of views by others.

Scholars who try to change our perception of essential NT texts are rare enough to deserve praise.

Tyson considers, with the Tubingen school, that Acts was written in Rome and responds to a consensus reached by the rivaling Jewish and Gentile factions after having been agitated by Marcion's influence using Galatians to give the Gentiles arguments to achieve self consciousness. Marcion also had a version of Luke.

Tyson's main theses here is that Marcion's Luke text was a primitive version and that canaonical Luke was also later completed as a reaction against Marcion.

Analyzing the opening and childhood chapters as well as the final chapter in canonical Luke, Tyson shows that they must have been written by a different author.

Acts and the completed Luke therefore responded to community strategies in the aftermath of Marcion, which I find a very realistic conclusion.