A Note on the Library
Before the chapters begin, a short note on how to read what is in front of you.
Every scripture in this book is quoted from the True Testament. That phrase needs unpacking, because most readers come to it for the first time inside one of these books.
The True Testament is the eleven-book canon Marcion of Sinope published in Rome around 140 AD: the Evangelion, the single Good News Paul preached, followed by the ten letters of Paul that we hold the early assemblies received before orthodox editors began adding to the collection. That is Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Laodiceans (the letter you may know as Ephesians), Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon. Ten letters. Not thirteen. The three Pastoral letters, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, are second-century forgeries written to domesticate Paul, and they are not in this canon and have never belonged in it.
The True Testament Assembly stewards a confessional scholarly reconstruction of these eleven books from hostile patristic witnesses and textual comparison. No extant Marcionite Gospel or Apostolikon manuscript survives. The edition grades material as directly attested, probable, or supplied for continuity; contextual completion necessarily involves editorial judgment. The Assembly adopts Evangelion priority as its house position, while Roth, BeDuhn, Klinghardt, Harnack, Zahn, and other reconstructors differ over wording and direction. The True Testament is the received baseline for this lexicon, not an independently recovered manuscript, and a longer canonical reading is not called an expansion unless the textual argument is made passage by passage.
Throughout this book, references work like this:
Evangelion 1:1 means chapter one, verse one of the Evangelion as the True Testament numbers it. The verse divisions are our own. They do not always match what you will find in a printed New Testament. Cite the True Testament address only. Do not borrow the orthodox number and hope it lands on the same sentence.
Galatians 1:1 means chapter one, verse one of Galatians as our text reads. In Paul’s letters the numbering often looks familiar, but that is not a promise of a match. Where orthodox Bibles kept verses we do not carry, our numbers skip or compress. Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 14 and 15, Galatians 1 and 3, and Laodiceans 6 are among the places where a familiar orthodox number will send you to the wrong sentence. Open our text.
Laodiceans is the letter most modern Bibles call Ephesians. The earliest superscription called it Laodiceans, and Marcion published it under that name. The recipient question matters less than the content question, though our text of the letter is shorter than the orthodox Ephesians.
The ten letters Paul wrote are Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Laodiceans, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon. That is the Apostolikon.
A few words about what you will not see.
You will not see the King James Version. You will not see the English Standard Version, the New International, the New Revised Standard, or any of the academic critical editions. You will not see a single scripture line translated by anyone who did not believe what the True Testament says. We do not borrow our verses from translators who, in good conscience, render aiōnios as eternal because their theology requires hell. We do not borrow our verses from translators who, in good conscience, render the Greek word for stake as cross because their iconography requires the Roman two-beamed logo. Every translation is a confession. The True Testament is ours.
You will also not see the Hebrew Bible quoted as authoritative scripture in this book. The Hebrew Bible is the Creator’s book. It records the Creator’s acts and the Creator’s laws faithfully, and we read it the same way the Evangelion does, as a true account of the wrong God. We will refer to it where the Evangelion refers to it, where Paul refers to it, where the contrast between Creator and Father is being drawn. We will not quote it as our scripture because it is not our scripture. It is the testament of the Creator, and the True Testament is the testament of the Father.
A note on the names of God. When you see the Father, the Good Father, the Unknown God, the Stranger God, these all refer to the same being: the God whom no one knew until Christ came down into Capernaum and made Him known. When you see the Creator, the god of this aeon, the maker of the world, these all refer to the same other being: the God of the Hebrew Bible who made matter, gave the Law, and rules this age. They are not the same God. They are not two faces of the same God. They are not Father and Son. They are two beings, and the difference between them is what the entire True Testament is for. The book will say so plainly every time it has to.
A note on the Spirit. We do not say the Holy Spirit. Holy in the orthodox phrasing reaches back into Hebrew sanctuary categories that belong to the Creator’s religion. We say the Spirit when we mean the Father’s Spirit, the one sent into our hearts to cry Abba on our behalf. Where the Evangelion or Paul says simply the Spirit, that is whom we mean.
A note on the verbs. Staked, not crucified. Rescued, not saved. Immerse, when the Greek verb requires it, but never as a sacrament, we do not practice the rite. These are not passing preferences of style. They are deliberate choices, made for what the Greek allows and for what we believe and do. Staked and rescued each have a chapter in this book that explains why.
One last thing. This book is short on purpose. Sixteen words, sixteen chapters, an introduction, and a library note. You can read it in a week of evenings. You can read it twice in a fortnight. You can read it again in a year when the words have settled into your prayers and you want to see what else is in them. That is the rhythm it was written in.
To the words, then.