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Did he??

Ever since the Protestant Reformation, the authenticity of all the Ignatian epistles has come under intense scrutiny. John Calvin called the epistles "rubbish published under Ignatius’ name."[4]:119 Protestants have tended to want to deny the authenticity of the epistles because they seem to attest to the existence of a monarchical episcopate in the second century.

In 1886, Presbyterian minister and church historian William Dool Killen published an essay extensively arguing that none of the epistles attributed to Ignatius are authentic. Instead, he argued that Callixtus, bishop of Rome, forged the letters around AD 220 to garner support for a monarchical episcopate, modeling the renowned Saint Ignatius after his own life to give precedent for his own authority.[30]:137 Killen contrasted this episcopal polity with the presbyterian polity in the writings of Polycarp.[30]:127

There is a Marxist type of Skepticism that denies everything it does not want to believe, regardless of the evidence, in order to promote its liberation theology.

Then there is also evidence based critical thinking that is skeptical of the above and sees liberation theology as the opposite of real freedom that is based on self-evident truth.

I'm not a Marxist.

I'm a Capitalist.

Your inability to imagine Capitalist, Constitutionalist, Veteran who's also Atheist say volumes about your closed mind.

Oh boy and what do you think those same guys would say about Marcion? They certainly would not consider him the author of the Pauline epistles. The Protestants as a whole, when laying aside their polemics, have recognized 7 of them as legitimate as have most other scholars. They were right to question them because others were forged under his name.
"The following seven epistles preserved under the name of Ignatius are generally considered authentic, since they were mentioned by the historian Eusebius in the first half of the fourth century."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Antioch

But this still does not solve your dilemma, because Polycarp who also lived before Marcion quotes Paul.
Polycarp 1:3
though ye saw Him not, ye believe with joy unutterable and full of
glory; unto which joy many desire to enter in; forasmuch as ye know
that it is by grace ye are saved, not of works, but by the will of
God through Jesus Christ.

You won't find any early writer of note who considers Marcion the author of the Pauline epistles.

Polycarp was only a few years younger than Marcion and did most of his writing at the end of his life.

Besides, it's not my delima, I just provided an alternative hypothesis of a current Biblical Scholar. If you want his detailed 600 page defense of the hypothesis, buy the book.

Only because you are unwilling to consider what is being pointed out.

You and other believers cannot contemplate the possibility that there are contradictions in the bible because it puts your own faith into question.


Yet the contradictions are there.

They are not my contradictions. These are contradictions that were recognized centuries ago. Contradictions that have never been resolved.

I did not say anything about capitalism. I am simply saying that skepticism which denies God and moral absolutes and which is totally materialistic in its approach is a Marxist type of skepticism.
Our founders were certainly critical thinking people and founded our nation on their belief in those self evident truths and on those premises wrote a Constitution. Are you accusing them of being close minded?

Questioning assumptions and beliefs has nothing to do with Marxism or any political ideology. It is just healthy scepticism.


The very same thing you do when it comes to other religions and other holy books....are you a Marxist because you question the beliefs of Hinduism?

DBT I don't think you are a challenge to anyone's faith or logic..

There's nothing "Marxist" about my skepticism, and your assertion that there is, is a slanderous ad hominem attack.

You have much more in common with the Marxist than I, because you both worship untrue propositions damaging to the well being of people.

Critical thinking that acknowledges truth and evidence based conclusions tests everything, including skepticism. The Bible says, prove all things, hold fast that which is good.

I have nothing in common with the basic premises of Marxism below. But some here have repeatedly shown evidence of agreement with their theology. This is simply stating facts. When someone does not like the facts they typically say they are being slandered.

Anti-religious principles of Marxism https://www.marxist.com/marxism-religion-liberation-theology220701.htm

1.Marxists stand on the basis of philosophical materialism, which rules out the existence of any supernatural entity, or anything outside or "above" nature. There is, in fact, no need for any such explanation for life and the universe - least of all today. Nature furnishes its own explanations and it furnishes them in great abundance.
2. The latest discoveries have finally exploded the nonsense of Creationism.
3.So, in spite of all this scientific development, why does Religion still have a grip on the minds of millions? Religion offers men and women the consolation of a life after death.
4.Where religion teaches us to lift our eyes to the heavens, Marxism tells us to fight for a better life on earth. Marxists believe that men and women should fight to transform their lives and to create a genuinely human society which would permit the human race to lift itself up to its true stature. We believe that men and women have only one life, and should dedicate themselves to making this life beautiful and self-fulfilling. If you like, we are fighting for a paradise in this life, because we know there is no other.
5. Lenin also pointed out that Engels recommended that the revolutionary party should carry out a struggle against religion: "The party of the proletariat demands that the state shall declare religion a private matter, but it does not for a moment regard the question of a fight against the opium of the people - the fight against religious superstition, etc., - as a private matter. The opportunists have so distorted the question as to make it appear that the Social Democratic Party regards religion as a private matter." Lenin on Religion pg 18
6.In the struggle of science against religion - that is to say, the struggle of rational thought against irrationality - Marxism sides wholeheartedly with science.
7. From the Communist manifesto:Question 22. Do Communists reject existing religions?
Answer: All religions which have existed hitherto were expressions of historical
stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But
communism is that stage of historical development which makes all existing
religions superfluous and supersedes them.
8.Vladimir Lenin was highly critical of religion, saying in his book Religion:
Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism.[7]
In The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion, he wrote:
Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class.[8]

Believers try every trick in the book as a means to avoid facing the undeniable fact of contradictions in the bible.

So why are you unwilling to apply critical thinking to your own faith? I'm sure that you want to think that you are, but to an objective observer it is clear that you are defending your faith by attempting to rationalize problems that are clearly there, problems that were raised centuries ago and never resolved because they cannot be resolved.

Only in the legend of your own mind. The issue is not me. The issue is contradictions in the bible, which are there regardless of me. I do nothing more than present them as they are.

Marcion could not have written epistles before Polycarp wrote his epistles--that is untenable.

Look at this also from another angle. Writers such Tertullian and Ireneaus considered Marcion a heretic because he left the apostolic teaching and founded his own religion. Do you really think they would accept Marcion as the writer of Paul's epistles while quoting from Paul and calling him a heretic? There is no logic in that position at all or in a 600 page book trying to prove it.

It doesn't change the fact, that at the core, you are both still wrong in a damaging way, and THAT's what you have in common with the Marxist.

Yes, indeed. Slander, it appears, becomes a means of defending the faith whenever a discussion or debate becomes uncomfortable or challenging for believers.

And both Tertullian and Ireneus were considered heritics by later Church leaders as well, so, by your own logic, you must discount everything they ever wrote.

They did a whole lot more than just slander during the Inquisition. We know how Christians behave when they have unfettered power, they commit atrocities on the same scale as Stalin and Mao, but don't worry, Thunderstick will be along soon with his "No True Scottsman" Fallacy to tell how the leaders of the Inquisition didn't really believe they were Christians.....