Prophets, Priests, and Kings

The close relationship between the two originally anonymous gospels that came to be ascribed to Marcion and to Luke is universally recognized. Attempting to reconstruct Marcion’s Gospel from the patristic sources, one finds passages attested as present, passages attested as absent, and passages that are simply unattested. Though there are a number of passages unattested, there is extant testimony concerning the presence or absence of a significant amount of material in Marcion’s Gospel. Given Marcion’s rejection of the Old Testament as scripture for his church, and his rejection of the Creator God and denial that this God was the father of Jesus Christ, it is striking that references to scriptural figures occur in Marcion’s Gospel as well as Luke’s. By raising the question of how these figures are presented and employed in these two gospels, this chapter highlights the inadequacy of simplistic views about the relationship between these texts.