Johnny Skeptic

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/9-19-2003-45623.asp

Bart Ehrman

"The Gospels that came to be included in the New Testament were all written anonymously; only at a later time were they called by the names of their reputed authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But at about the time these names were being associated with the Gospels, other Gospel books were becoming available, sacred texts that were read and revered by different Christian groups throughout the world: a Gospel, for example, claiming to be written by Jesus’ closest disciple, Simon Peter; another by his apostle Philip; a Gospel allegedly written by Jesus’ female disciple Mary Magdalene; another by his own twin brother, Didymus Judas Thomas."

"Someone decided that four of these early Gospels, and no others, should be accepted as part of the canon—the collection of sacred books of Scripture. But how did they make their decisions? When? How can we be sure they were right? And whatever happened to the other books?"

"And then, as a coup de grace, this victorious party rewrote the history of the controversy, making it appear that there had not been much of a conflict at all, claiming that its own views had always been those of the majority of Christians at all times, back to the time of Jesus and his apostles, that its perspective, in effect, had always been 'orthodox' (i.e., the 'right belief') and that its opponents in the conflict, with their other scriptural texts, had always represented small splinter groups invested in deceiving people into 'heresy' (literally meaning 'choice'; a heretic is someone who willfully chooses not to believe the right things)."

Johnny Skeptic: 1 Corinthians 1:11-13 say "For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?"

Those Scriptures do not imply that the early Christian church was united.

gurugeorge

I've just been reading this book and I have to say it's a great book for an interested layperson to read to get a "big picture" of the situation from a respected scholar. Ehrman is a historicist but takes a highly scholarly-critical view of the way Christianity developed. He doesn't go quite as far as Robert Price in his deconstruction, but he's perilously close. He also shares with Price an engaging writing style - once you pick up his book it's hard to put down again.

Another virtue of his writing is that while he is scholarly-critical, he is nowhere scathing or disrespectful in a way that might put off the hypothetical fundamentalist who (like himself and Price at some point in their lives) might be in the process of extricating themselves from the fundamentalist viewpoint - the combination of erudition, mastery of his field, intelligence and gentleness of spirit must, I think, be disarming to a rational person in that transitional phase.

As to the nitty-gritty of his book, it's clear that he basically accepts W Bauer's basic, pioneering idea of a multiplicity of Christianities, of which the proto-orthodox Christianity that developed into the Christianity eventually sanctioned by Constantine was, in the early days, only one, often struggling example. The book outlines the struggle in terms of texts, beliefs, forgeries, polemic etc., that proto-orthodoxy used against the now-lost forms of Christianity, showing how only in recent times (especially since the Nag Hammadi find) have we begun to get some idea of the other side of the story - how some of those lost forms of Christianity defended themselves, often using the same tools.

Toto

The link has an excerpt from Lost Christianities (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Gamera

The fact that there was this explosion of contending interpretations of the gospel early on strongly supports the historicist position. This is because the events were subject to different understandings, and various groups wanted to "claim" the events by imposing their interpretation upon them.

In contrast, if the gospel were essentially mythic in origin, there would seem to be no room for alternate Christianities. The understanding itself, the myth, drove the claim as to what events purportedly took place. Unless you already have a shared understanding, you don't create the mythic events in the first place.

Cege

Soooo, nothing's changed.

gurugeorge

What nonsense - myths diverge and multiply all the time, people vary the myths in the telling. There are several variations on all the "classical" myths.

The variety in early Christianity comes about because the placing of the mythical Anointed One in the past invites the pious mind to fill in the "historical" gap - there's a vaccuum that people immediately rush in to fill. What is at first a sketchy, Scripture-based myth based on no particular set time (as found in Paul and Hebrews, e.g.) quickly takes on several kinds of flesh, no flesh, part flesh part spirit, etc., etc. Everybody and his mother feels quite free to make it up as they see fit, within the basic parameters of Jewish Anointed One lore, and the perceived prophecy in Scripture of his fairly recent advent. After a while (a few decades) Mark's dramatic story (placed in a particular recent past that makes sense for various reasons) catches on, becomes popular, and it in turn is used as a basic theme on which to improvise. At this stage some see the story as purely mythical, spiritual/allegorical (proto-gnosticism), others see it as historico-mytical (proto-orthodoxy, mixed man and myth) and others see it as purely historical (i.e. he was just a prophet - the Ebionite view).

Had there actually been apostles who had witnessed a man's life and deeds, the profusion would have been corrected by constant retelling of the facts of his life and his sayings. Since there were no apostles who had ever met any such person, only apostles who shared a mythical vision, nobody felt much of a need to correct anything for a fairly long time.

It was only a certain sub-sect, the proto-orthodox, who took the Markan storyline more seriously as historical fact, but unlike the Ebionites still retained a strongly mythical content too, and who wished to have a solid lineage connection back to the Anointed One himself, to bolster their theological opinions and give them political and psychological ascendancy over their fellows. That's when correction first comes in. Gradually the story is solidified, alternative visions and versions excised, condemned as wilful deviance from an imaginary proto-orthodox "history" and "apostolic succession".

tjakey

You got it, since the current Christian Church is nothing but a chaos of contending beliefs as well. At least they are consistant in their inconsistancy.