Marcion: The Gospel of a Wholly Good God

by M. David Litwa

Marcion presents the life, thought, and work of Marcion of Pontus in its historical, theological, ethical, and liturgical contexts. It distinguishes itself from its competitors by employing a new rigorously critiquing heresy reports by means of the testimony of Marcion's scriptures. It devotes attention to the reliable reconstruction of those scriptures, arguing for the chronological priority of Marcion's Gospel over what is now known as canonical Luke. It seeks to overthrow the common heresiological (and sometimes scholarly) portraits of Marcion as a ditheist, a docetist, a world-denier, requiring divorce, and deleting scripture. In so doing, it creates a new portrait of Marcion that is substantially different from everything that has come before.

Genres: Christianity

266 pages, Hardcover

Published August 19, 2025

Reviews

[Lincoln · Rating 5 out of 5]

insightful but I’d rather keep the Old Testament

Recommended to anyone interested in the case for Marcionite priority over canonical Luke, or Marcion in general.

The book ends with a reasonable plea to decanonize terror verses from the Bible. I don’t like this. A much better solution is I think already proposed by modern theologians (e.g Barth, Bulttman etc); that is to simply treat the Bible as a human witness to divine truths. And like every human witness a deeply flawed, fallible effort. The task of theology is to illumine what God has revealed.

[JonM · Rating 3 out of 5]

I lost interest after chapter three. I slogged through the rest. I found it disappointing to learn that the book doesn't develop an argument per se; it posits an opinion as a probability. Overall, I think this book is not as reliable as litwa's doctoral dissertation.

[Caleb ☧ · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent homage to one of the most demonized—yet profoundly misunderstood—Church Fathers of early Christianity. This book is a must‑read for anyone who wishes to discover the true story of Marcion of Sinope, and it includes a superb reconstruction of his Antitheses.