Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Hegesippus: this source combines pre-existing stories, including a story about the death of James involving the fuller's club and a different story of stoning from the Second Apocalypse of James. I think these stories go together, given that servants of priests are said to have beaten people with c...

I have serious reservations with following the timeline from any church father, especially Epiphanius. Not only is he writing in the 4th century, far removed from the scene of the crime, and he is not above making stuff up (like the Nazarenes antedating Christ). Might you be confusing Nazarenes (Ep...

That isn't what you said. Yes, it is. No it is not. You said: "So having access to and using a Jewish gospel wouldn't be unusual for Marcion (especially one that was largely anti-OT/anti-sacrifice)" The syntactic construction of this line reads that Marcion would use a Jewish Gospel that ...

As far as Ebionites go, I view the Jewish Christians who hated Paul in Acts as "proto-Ebionites," and given the subject of this thread, I think it's worth noting that these Jews are said to have come from "the province of Asia," which is close to where Marcion is said to have com...

- Paul had a gospel that was judiazed One can see this contrasting Acts with the Epistles In what way does Acts "judaize" Paul? Paul calls himself a Jew (Gal. 2:15: "We who are Jews by birth") and was willing to be Torah observant around Jews (1 Cor. 9:5: "To the Jews I bec...

I don't think the Ebionite Matthew was "anti-Jewish" for being anti-sacrifice and largely unobservant. That would be like saying Reform Jews are "anti-Jewish" for being anti-sacrifice and largely unobservant. But I figure a Jewish writing that promoted these things would have ap...

But Paul was Jewish, so there is already a precedent for Marcion using Jewish writings. It's baked into Marcionism even if we set aside his gospel (unless Paul wasn't Jewish in Marcionism). So having access to and using a Jewish gospel wouldn't be unusual for Marcion (especially one that was largel...

And it makes more sense for Ebionites to have been influenced by Elxaii since they were all Jewish, rather than Ebionites being influenced by Gentile Christianity or by a document that circulated among Gentiles. But that logic cuts both ways as Marcion's gospel is dependent on a Jewish bedrock to s...

And it makes more sense for Ebionites to have been influenced by Elxaii since they were all Jewish, rather than Ebionites being influenced by Gentile Christianity or by a document that circulated among Gentiles.

As I reread Pan. 30, another thing to consider is that Epiphanius says that Ebionites shared the Nazarene belief that Jesus was a man but that over time they "became associated with Elxai, and they have the circumcision, the Sabbath, and the custom's of Ebion, but Elxai's delusion . Thus they b...