Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Paulinism and Polycarp: 430 ... Paulinism, which held the just middle and so firmly adhered to the original foundation of the New Testament, did not hesitate to emphasize the spiritual authority set by God. At the same time, Polycarp (around 150 AD), knowing his external position, had something othe...

The so-called second Letter of Clement: 411 A particular treatise specifically addressed the denial of the resurrection of the flesh. The significance of the physical, both for the person of Jesus himself and for the realization of the kingdom of God in the physical world, was elaborated and firmly ...

403 ... a rise of monotheistic consciousness with the Gnostic flow and its speculation appears in all the writings .. .from 120 to 135 ... 405 The Paulinism touched by Gnosis and rooted in monotheism polemically confronts Christian Judaism, particularly the lingering influence in Ephesus, in the le...

Dr. Gustav Volkmar, 'The Religion of Jesus and its first development according to the current state of science', to Mr. Privy Councillor, Dr. Punsen, at Heidelberg, 1857 387 [p.194 of the pdf https://vridar.info/xorigins/Volkmar/Volkmar-ReligionOfJesus.pdf] ... in the Gospel of Matthew, the great ma...

Jerome seems to have thought that Philo could have had some contact with early Christianity (apparently thinking of the references to the Therapeutae and interpreting them as such). https://web.archive.org/web/20070224051313/http://www.textexcavation.com/gospelorigins.html#jerome [ From On Famous M...

fwiw, in chronological order by year: Williams, “Uses of Gender Imagery in Ancient Gnostic Texts,” in Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols ; edited by Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell, and Paula Richman; Boston: Beacon, 1986. Virginia Burrus, The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Author...

Elsewhere, Litwa comments on Wisdom, but the most significant would be where, in saying says Ophite Christians "speculated on the role and figure of Wisdom," he immediately gives old Hebrew references thus, "Prov. 8; Sir 24; Wis. 7; 1 En. 42" (in brackets), and says, "whom t...

In Found Christianities , Litwa wrote: Another indication of an early date for the [ Great ] Declaration Commentary is its failure to agree with the earliest anti-Simon reports. The earliest of these reports is Acts, which depicts the pre-Christian Simon venerated as “the Power of God called Great” ...

I’ve been reading Irenaeus’ Against Heresies because it has some of the earliest known records of gnostic thought, and his section on Barbeloites essentially tells the first half of the Apocryphon of John, starting with the Monad and Barbelo, and ending with Sophia creating the demiurge. There’s so...

Eusebius' Eccl. hist. II.1.10-12: (paraphrases Acts 8:9-13 and misrepresents Simon as being called the Great Power, as does Acts 8: Simon in both is an emphatic personification of Simonian theology) "So much did divine grace cooperate with Philip than even Simon the magus, with many others, wer...