The cranky, severe, Old Testament God isn’t an opening act. An image is burned into my memory: an incandescent lamp on my mother's night stand illuminating the open pages of her well-worn Bible.

Marcion was one of the most significant "heretics" of the second century C.E. as evidenced both by the number of church fathers that wrote against him and the amount that they wrote against him.

Long before the New Testament was finalized, an early Christian named Marcion created what may have been the first Christian Bible. His gospel rejected the Old Testament God entirely, portraying Jesus ...