Marcion of Sinope (ca. 85-160 CE) must have been a wild and crazy guy. He was also a heretic.

Marcion held many outside the box ideas about the nascent Christian faith. For example, he asserted that Jesus was distinct from the vengeful, tyrannical “demiurge” (creator god) who fashioned the universe. But probably his most well-known claim was that the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, should be excluded from the Christian Bible. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s close enough for our purposes. Do away with the Old Testament!

Long term readers of this blog may recall a short-lived series I once began — Heresies I Have Loved. I reflected on a couple Christian heresies (antinomianism and Jesus only) for which I have some sympathies. They make some sense — to me at least. I don’t subscribe to them, but they tug at something. 

Similarly (and here I brace for impact) I have some secret sympathies for Marcion’s claim that we should do away with the Old Testament.

In my imagination I already hear the howls, the shrieks, the moaning, the sighs of disappointment in me, the distancing and dismissals, the gnashing of teeth from many of my closest friends, most respected colleagues, revered professors, and faithful readers of the Reformed Journal.

How can I say this? The Old Testament is so rich and varied, deep and wide. It spans so many centuries. It’s composed of so many types of literature. It brims with unforgettable stories, luminous poetry, and astonishing metaphors, as well as delightful, exotic, and provocative characters. It’s earthy. It’s real. It has probably kept Christian antisemitism from being any worse than it has been. Without it, so much of the New Testament doesn’t make sense. It’s our heritage. It was Jesus’s Bible. And a lot more good stuff.

I agree with all that.

I also contend that about 90 percent of Christians, let alone the general public, don’t understand this. 

For example:

1. Why is it that whenever I talk to conservative Christian men, their church Men’s Group is inevitably doing a “character study” of Nehemiah, or some other strong, decisive, and usually violent man? What is with this preoccupation with “leadership” in Men’s Groups? 

2. Haven’t we all experienced an Old Testament reading in worship that contains something deeply troubling or very odd? We all sit there uncomfortably, wondering, “Did everyone else just hear that? Maybe the preacher will explain it.” But then the sermon goes in a different direction. And that one alarming Old Testament phrase hangs in the air, unaddressed, like an ugly stench. We all leave feeling disappointed and a bit disturbed.

3. I’ve come to divide the Psalms into three broad categories. 1.) Beautiful, honest, meaningful — fortunately, there are many. 2.) the whines of a self-righteous, arrogant, and vindictive prig — there are too many. 3.) Davidic dynasty propaganda — not that many, but still too many. 

4. The obsession with the first three chapters of the Bible. It has become the Swiss Army knife of the culture wars. The trustworthiness of science. Gender roles. The climate crisis. It is all in there? Did you happen to see the recent review in RJ of a book by a retired Wheaton/Moody Bible Institute professor who dares to declare that many longstanding conclusions drawn from Genesis 1-3 are simply not in the text? Here, we Reformed folk need to own up to our role in strip mining Genesis 1-3. I’m looking especially at you, Kuyperians.

5. Then there is the sermon series through Ezekiel or Daniel. I feel I hear about them all too often. I’ll tell you that I hope to live a good, long life and I plan to read and engage with Ezekiel as little as possible. I’m positive you can lead a very happy and productive life reading Luke-Acts, Galatians, Philippians, and a few others.

6. How about the people who insist on trying to read the Bible cover-to-cover (despite being counseled against it), or those “Read the Bible in One Year” plans?  Most stall out in Leviticus, wearied and worried by the blood and killing and seemingly capricious god. Should we be relieved they never make it to the books of KIngs and Samuel? I must, however, share a counter-example, a friend who read through the entire Bible, year after year. It moved him away from fundamentalism. His conclusion about the main thrust of the Old Testament? “The Lord is merciful and gracious, patient and overflowing with steadfast love.” Sadly, he might be the exception that proves the rule.

7. Honestly, so often when I read or hear from the Old Testament, I say to myself, “I know where Christian Nationalists get it.” Yes, of course, I’d contend they are misreading. Still, it is easy to understand why they espouse treachery and violence for the cause of God; why they hate and want to separate from those who are other; or why they feel justified in monopolizing political power. It’s right there in the Bible, especially the Old Testament. A shallow and mistaken reading of the passages? Yes. But still there in plain terms.

Perhaps it is not incidental that my first two Bibles contained only the New Testament. First, was a pocket New Testament with a green faux leather cover, distributed by the Gideons at my public school. Can that memory be true? It included the Pledge of Allegiance on one of the opening pages, just like a certain “God Bless the USA” Bible currently on the market. Mine, however, was free. The other was a Good News for Modern Man presented to me by my church. Who recalls the spare and fluid drawings in the Good News Bible?

This has been fun. But we are not going to discard the Old Testament, and we should not. So then what?

Our almost instinctive reaction is to say “We must teach it better! Preach it better! More clearly! More faithfully!  More often! 

Possibly. But time is limited. Listeners are few. There are many other urgent things to teach and preach.

I wonder if we need to engage more publicly and more directly the misinterpretations and twisted readings. Rebut them head-on, at a popular level, not only in academic journals. I realize some of this is already happening. 

I wonder also about how we talk to children and youth about the Old Testament, or really the entire Bible. Sugarcoating. Evading. Simplifying. Over-promising. Many adults are stuck with a third-grade understanding of the Bible — what it is, and how to read it.

Okay, Marcion remains a heretic. The Church was right to reject his conclusions. But I’m not entirely surprised that he reached them.