Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Given that Epiphanius says the Ebionites emerged sometime after 70 CE from the earlier Nazarene faction of Jewish Christianity (which was okay with Paul), I doubt there was "a kind of merger" between them and Paul in the 80's CE. And given that they are said to have been vegetarians and o...

I suspect the enmity between Paul and the Ebionites ('Judaisers') resulted in a partial reproachment at some point several decades later (80's?), a kind of merger. The Ebionites had a proto-Matthew style gospel that got reworked into Matthew we know. 1 Clement may come from the 90's and so represent...

How do you know how god condemns? You see a false idea of what god is like. What is the right idea and how can you know anything about the supernatural? I go a lot by the gospel of Thomas to help get into right mood for pondering this stuff, it's influenced me a lot. I also find the Odes of Solomon...

Marvin Meyer writes, "What makes the crucifixion laughable [in Second Discourse of Great Seth 81,15-24] is the ignorance of the powers who think they can execute the real, living Jesus. The mention made of Simon in the text is reminiscent of the role of Simon the Cyrene in the New Testament (M...

it's debt that is the problem

"You want your cake and to eat it too." Yep down to the last crumb! I can see your point about scripture, but if it's not 100% false then it's a matter of how to read it to find the true interpretation. I'm not sure whether claiming scripture is 100% literally false isn't as problematic as...

Looking into this the same tired old sources keep coming up. Surely theres more obscure ones than Justin M and the usual suspects, minor fathers, Syrian, Coptic? So what did they believe? I'll start the ball rolling, were they dualist Gnostics or not? The quote from the Great Revelation doesn't seem...

GnosticBishop this whole question is based on the premise that God has condemned mankind as found in scriptures When I say 'found in scriptures' I mean it is unclear precisely what is going on and depends on which parts you emphasise along the way For example you could easily emphasise the parts whe...

which agrees with the clementine's where John was Simon's forerunner, presumably all in Samaria
Josephus hardly likes to spill the beans but its kind of obvious his 'robbers' and 'rebels' are covering up much broader stuff he omits. but he does i think like to be accurate about places and dates.

he would be wrong about the Shepherd for sure. it has a well lived in feel to it