Marcion - Originator of Alternate Theologies

Some Christians question how the books found in the New Testament came to be accepted to the approved canon. Actually, it was the other way around. John, the original apostle, and his understudy, Polycarp, made sure that spurious and fraudulent books did not become part of the recommended reading material of Christians in the first and second centuries AD. For example, they rejected the Gospel of the Lord, also known as the Gospel of Marcion. There were two extremes of religious leaders seeking to distract people away from the gospel of the kingdom of God. One extreme were the legalists, who believed salvation was earned by keeping the law and by being circumcised. The other extreme were the Nicoliatans, whose reasoning was: “God is glorified by forgiving sin, so sin early and sin often in order that God may be glorified that much more.” Sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4). Anti-law imperatives are not something new in theology. Every era of time has had its advocates. The organized beginnings in the Christian era is documented as far back as the 140’s AD. At that point in time there was a heretic named Marcion who invented a new philosophy, which represented an unusual view of Christ.

During the second century, Marcion of Pontius (in West Asia) became associated with a professing Christian group in Rome. He was the son of the bishop of Sinope. He formulated the idea of the Bad God/Good God. His belief was a strange outgrowth of gnostic theology. He believed the Most High God was an inferior being. He believed Christ came to overturn the harsh laws of the Most-High God. He believed Christ was always spirit (never flesh). He believed Christ never really died for the sins of every one. He believed Christ to have been a phantasm. This is, of course, the spirit of the Antichrist. He thought the death of Christ was theatrical, not real. Therefore he believed Christ never suffered. He believed there was something holy about not having sex so he and his followers tried to practice celibacy. The bishops (supposedly, including his own father) excommunicated him for this odd philosophy. Ironically, years later, as the standard religion became more corrupt, the mainstream would embrace celibacy as something holy.

Marcion believed the role of Christ was to liberate Christians from the power of the Most High God (the Father). So he thought the Father was the evil God of the Old Testament. And Christ (he thought) was the nice God of the New Testament who made the harsh God of the Old Testament unnecessary. Does this sound familiar? It certainly fits into some of modern day theology. Marcion believed that only Paul understood the teachings of Christ. So Marcion put together a Christian canon consisting of only ten letters of Paul and a modified Gospel of Luke. He threw out the Old Testament completely. He didn′t want his followers reading Matthew, Mark, John, Acts, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, James, or Jude. And he certainly didn′t want them to read the book of Revelation. In Revelation there are the prophecies of God’s people keeping the commandments right up to the end. Of course, in the Bible, you can’t go further into the future than Revelation.

“And the dragon was angry with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17).

One time when Marcion bumped into Polycarp (an understudy of John, the Apostle), Marcion said, “Don’t you recognize me?” Polycarp said, “I do indeed. I recognize the firstborn of Satan!”

Marcion was not the only anti-law advocate at the time. But he was one of the most famous. Marcion’s “canon” (the modified Gospel of Luke and 10 of Paul’s letters) was a thin book (scroll) to begin with. And from time to time he would alter the “canon”. He always subtracted from it. He never added to it. He removed those scriptures that encouraged obedience to God and those scriptures emphasizing works for a Christian to do. Thankfully, Polycarp, and later, Polycrates of Ephesus, made sure that contrived canons such as Marcion&rsquos were exposed and rejected.

English Bible History

Bible Questions

Wily Elder, CBA, CMI

Antiquity Online, Jews and Christians in Rome’s Golden Age, Chapter 19, 1999 Fesmitha, Eureka

Brom, Jennifer, The Ecole Glossary, 1999 Cedar Evansville Education, Ecole

Holmes, Peter; Five Books Against Marcion, 1868 Peter Holmes

Josephus, Flavius, Antiquities of The Jews, 1981 Kregel Pub, Grand Rapids, MI, United States

Lieuwen, Daniel F., The Emergence of the New Testament Canon, 1999 Daniel F Lieuwen

Voorwinde, Stephen Vox Reformata Articles, 1999 Vox Reformata, Geelong, Australia

Wiki Editors, Gospel of Marcion, copyright 2009 Absolute Astronomy

Read also about emotional freedom technique, as it has assisted many people to find the path to spirituality.

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Hard Drive Data Recovery Services Can Help Your Business Survive

When you operate a start up, you may not have the budget to hire specialized personnel for all departments, like big companies do. IT and data recovery services are the ones which you can outsource without major problems. After all, computers don’t break every day, do they?

There are various reasons why the files on a hard disk can be lost or corrupted. The hard drive crash is only one of these possible causes. Other frequent ones are: accidental deletion, accidental format, operating system failure, or physical damage of the disk such as floods, fire or dropping from a big height.

In case disk data appears to be corrupt or missing, it is crucial that you shut down immediately that computer and call the data recovery service specialists. They can assess the damage and give you advice on the next steps you need to do in order to see your data back again. If not, you risk a permanent loss.

If you are not a computer professional, do not attempt to retrieve your data by downloading software from the internet and making it run on your drive. The situation may worsen if you don’t know what you are doing there.

Wherever we have a magnetic data storage support, it appears the danger and the possibility of data loss. Hard disks are exposed, as well as USB pens, mp3 players, or storage cards. All operating systems from Novell to Linux or Windows are exposed.

Learn how to listen to your computer. It will tell you when the hard drive gets older and tends to fail in operation. The preliminary stage is the one of unusual sounds, cracks or bumps. When you hear such things, you should backup your drive and shut it down. Then call your computer service company to tell them what you heard.

Crashed RAID disks can be retrieved, but no service would guarantee you complete success. In order for a RAID recovery to succeed, it is necessary that all the servers in the array are accessible.

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Land of the Free of Debt

Last time I was here, I wrote about a little slice of my financial life. I discussed how I began a life independent of parents but controlled by debt, and how I struggled to surpass it while living by my own. I then described myself today; finally free of debt, and finally standing up on my own two feet completely. And what do I do next? I thought about getting a housing loan.

This is the sad financial situation that many Americans find themselves in these days. The land of the free occupied by people in constant debt; starting from an innocent student loan, and then going on to paying mortgages for your family’s home. Factor it that loan for their vehicles, and the education plan that they have in place so that their children will not suffer as much debt. Only by seeing this big picture will you realize the truth; we are only as free as our debts allow us to be.

This is one of the important things that we must change if we are to surpass the hardships of this recession. Debts on their own are not that harmful to the individual and our great country. But if that same person gets himself or herself in excessive debt, it could all blow up even if he or she could pay them all. All it takes is a little bump on the proverbial financial road.

Only a select few things are more difficult than experiencing things that you own repossessed; and this can truly happen if you are unable to pay your debt. Avoid this as much as possible! If you really need to that loan, double-check if you have enough savings and extra income. That way, even if you do hit some bumps on the road, you’ll have enough reserves to offset the loss.

In the end, we must learn to practice frugality. This is not too hard to do, especially if you start learning the balance between frugality and happiness. Don’t save up to the point that you end up not buying anything for yourself; reward yourself from time to time for a job well done.

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