Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Bolded and underlined are the things that I see as hints to what the oldest "Christians" were up to and what was important to them. Everything italicized was, in my estimation, added later to the story in order to clarify its meaning under proto-Orthodox dogma. Acts 2: When the day of Pen...

I think that the Mandeans attest only the existence of an old Gospel tradition that placed John the Baptist in opposition to Jesus. Gotcha, do you think Mandaeaism has any relevance to early Christianity? I wonder if its syncretism with Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and so-called "gnostic" myth...

Yep, it's all centred on Christianity and the other: even "Gentile" — even though it refers to non-Jews, the way "pagan" refers to non-Christians—is a word we largely know about b/c Gentiles are framed as part of the early Christian collective. I never made that connection befor...

Forgive me if this is a belabored point: basically, I wonder if reading about theological discussion by the intellectual elites of a group isn't the best way to understand that group's more common beliefs, practices, and stories. When I was in India I read a lot about "Hinduism" beforehand...

It is worth noting that when I was investigating the Christian origins at Ostia Pliny was related to someone who was said to have been one of the leading Roman Christians in the second century. I am not sure the letter is a forgery. Interesting! Did you find anything about what the Christian commun...

To be clear: John the Baptist never existed. He is only another name to cover an embarrassing tradition dating back to the historical Jesus. Gotcha. Would you say that the Mandaean traditions are largely derivative of the earliest (proto-)Christian traditions? By your model, it sounds like they too...

My present opinion is that "John the Baptist" is a Gospel invention to cover, behind the image of a mere precursor (=="YHWH gives grace"), an embarrassing, rival portrait of Jesus held among some sects, possibly one dating back to a hypothetical historical Jesus. (Which means th...

'Mandeans', 'king of the world'. It appears that the King /Prince of the /this World figure was the earliest conception of Christ's total antagonist, with the identification ranging from Satan, Yahweh, the Demiurge, or any combination of those. It looks like it was, at its earliest stage, an otherw...

I have dusted off a copy of Norelli's 1995 commentary and am reminded that he argues that the Ascension of Isaiah was put together to protest against the stifling of visionary prophetic experiences among Christians. I plan to outline his case in a future blog post. [...] Norelli goes on to suggest ...

While aniconism is the absence of material representations—ie.icons—of the [ theologial ] worlds of various cultures , it's a term largely applied to the early monotheistic Abrahamic religions Trust me, if I could remove all the Abrahamic associations/presuppositions in the wording we use I would. ...