Marcion was a prominent heretic infamous for his denial of the authority of the Old Testament as Scriptures.
Marcion was the son of the Bishop of Sinope on the shores of the Black Sea (northern modern Turkey). He moved to Rome in about 140 and began to promulgate his views, for which he was excommunicated in 144. Central to Marcion's teaching was that the Christian faith is a Gospel of Love in sharp distinction from and to the exclusion of the Law. For Marcion, therefore, the God of the Old Testament has nothing to do with the God of love of the New Testament. Even within the New Testament, however, Marcion made a distinction between its various documents. Paul was Marcion's hero. Paul, Marcion believed, was the only one who understood and preached the true gospel. The other apostles and the evangelists, Marcion believed, were still blinded by their Jewish presuppositions. Marcion's Bible consisted, therefore, only of ten of Paul's epistles and an edited version of Luke's Gospel.
None of Marcion's writings has survived and we know of his teachings only through the extensive quotations in the early Christian theologians who refuted him.
From his teachings, those who deny the authority of the Old Testament as Scriptures and of its power to speak as the word of God are termed Marcionites.
Resources:
F. F. Bruce, "The History of New Testament Study," in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods, ed. I. Howard Marshall, (Carlisle: The Paternoster Press, revised 1979), pp.21-59. (For Marcion, see esp., pp.24ff.) Pdf N 6-7 (Open on Phone)
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