Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I think Candida Moss has undervalued the significance of martyrdom in early Christianity. I think rather than Christians always being innocent victims of Imperial persecutions many Christians eagerly sought out to be killed in order to cleanse themselves of sin - much like modern day suicide bombers...

I agree. And getting back to early Christianity you hear it in the language of Celsus and other early critics - even Lucian - about the delusional, hysterical character of members of the repulsive sect. We have various types of media to 'record' what happened at a given event. But the underlying unr...

Tertullian Resurrection of the Flesh has an interesting statement: Some will have it, that by the phrase "flesh and blood," because of its rite of circumcision, Judaism is meant, which is itself too alienated from the kingdom of God, as being accounted "the old or former conversation,...

Here is what Lightfoot says about the passage: In this treatise the writer denounces the Praedicatio Pauli as maintaining " adulterinum, imo internecinum baptisma"; in order to invalidate its authority, he proceeds to show its thoroughly unhistorical character; and among other instances he...

Still it is interesting that we have a witness which seems to ignore Galatians 1 and 2 as spurious. Price and I have noticed independently of one another than Jerome's use of Origen's reflection of Marcion seems to indicate no Marcionite reference to the same section of text in Galatians. In other w...

I think the author is right. It is not about written gospels but about a 'hostile meeting.'

This critic reads the passage very differently and says that the rather than the collation of the gospel being in the text he reads the author of Rebaptism to have objected that the author of the Preaching of Paul [Peter?] acts as if Peter and Paul met in Rome for the first time ignoring what is wri...

Thanks Ben. collātĭo (conl- ), ōnis, f. confero, I.a bringing together, collecting. I. Prop., of the standards in war for battle, a hostile meeting: “signorum,” Cic. de Or. 1, 48, 210: centuriarum, for voting, id. ap. Ascon. in Toga Cand. p. 85, 18 Baiter: “hyacinthorum et auri,” Plin. 37, 9, 42, § ...

For those who are unfamiliar with the play on words between 'naked' and 'apostle' in Syriac - https://books.google.com/books?id=ONJlu1EgVKsC&pg=PA80&lpg=PA80&dq=naked+apostle+syriac&source=bl&ots=87PuP2O5o0&sig=9cCwW1YuuwaiCElrWIl68JHZusM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8m...

Owing to a familiar play on words in Syriac שליחי is both the adjective for 'apostle' (= apostolic) and 'naked.' I have always been convinced of the authenticity of the Letter to Theodore simply because of the mystical meaning of 'naked with naked' i.e. 'apostle with apostle' (γυμνὸς γυμνῷ Theod. II...