Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

So for your OP to be valid we have to logically assume that an underground (not necessarily secret) Christian education system was operative between the century of Christian origins (or the century when the ligatures were first commissioned if different) and the 6th/7th century during which time th...

Looking for good sources on the history of challenges to apostolic authority, especially to the claim that Peter was "the first Pope". I'm not looking so much for the current state of scholarship, but rather a history of when these challenges began and how they developed over the years. I...

Are there any existing threads discussing Martijn's new book, Gospels, Epistles, Old Testament ? There appear to be two major threads: (1) Prima facie observations on Gospels, Epistles, Old Testament: The order of books according to Jesus Chri st https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&am...

The Church Fathers don't want their audience to take an interest in Marcionism or any of the sects they opposed. When you see how exaggerated their coverage was of the Arians it is not hard to see that the Marcionite account was likely garbled and exaggerated. How can we be sure that the Church Fat...

Acts of Thomas and "The [Gnostic] Hymn of the Pearl" https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/actsthomas.html 200-225 CE - Early Christian Writings The following background is provided by Geoff Trowbridge's Introduction Aside from the section of the Acts of John known as the "Preaching...

there is no one or set 'Gnostic' concept of ceatiron Setting aside the claims of the heresiologists and examining the extant "Gnostic" manuscripts themselves (especially those in the NHL and those related) it seems reasonably clear (to me anyway) that the creation account in Plato's "...

Persecution of heretics commenced when Nicene orthodoxy arose during the rule of Constantine. Some historians (e.g Robin Lane Fox) claim that the earliest precedents for torture of the philosophers and magistrates on account of their admitting religious fraud was at the earlier Council of Antioch. (...

The following data has been extracted from Hugo Lundhaug's " Textual Fluidity and Post-Nicene Rewriting in the Nag Hammadi Codices" in NAG HAMMADI À 70 ANS.QU’AVONS NOUS APPRIS? NAG HAMMADI AT 70:WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? (Colloque international, Québec, Université Laval, 29-31 mai 2015 Lundau...

The uncomfortable facts are that (a) the biggest "gnostic" names are pre-150, (b) the anti-heretical writings with specificity are post-150, and (c) there are no other sources with dates. It's not chronological, but here is an attempt at a list of names, with who mentions them: https://bi...