The Orthodox Corruption of Paul: An Argument for the Priority of the Marcionite Apostolos

Imagine that we had a significantly different and demonstrably earlier edition of Paul’s letters—published around 140 CE—but that no one used it. Commentators did not comment on it; preachers didn’t preach it; scholars didn’t study it. Imagine a world in which this earlier edition of Paul was, for all intents and purposes, ignored among researchers and unknown to the public at large.

But this is not the world of fantasy. It is in fact our world. The greatest discovery of our time—the Marcionite version of Paul’s letters predating our earliest manuscripts—has barely made a dent in the vast suit of armor called Pauline scholarship. This book introduces the Marcionite edition, how it is reconstructed, and why it is chronologically prior to the canonical edition. After a profile of the canonical editors (their education, provenance, aims, and motives), the book ends with a closing meditation on the “authentic” or “apostolic” Paul as early catholic myth.