Against Marcion

Thomas Jefferson would know.

And this is also essentially what the early Christian bishop Irenaeus accused a man named Marcion of doing, creating a scriptural hack job.

Around 180 CE, Irenaeus wrote that Marcion was the only one who had dared openly to mutilate the scriptures.

Marcion was an early Christian leader who, within around 100 years after the death of Jesus, launched a Christian movement that scholars now call Marcionism.

His movement quickly spread across the Mediterranean world, reaching as far as ancient Persia and lasting at least until the 400s and 500 CE.

Marcion's followers revered him for his practice and teachings of self-denial, but he was a lightning rod for criticism.

Around 150 CE, the early Christian theologian Justin Martyr called Marcion an old man with teachings inspired by demons.

Writing a few decades later, Irenaeus was the first to depict him as a foundational heretic.