Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The middle (Greek) recension reads like real letters with personal details irrelevant to a later redactor. The short (Syriac) recension leaves it unclear for example where Ignatius is writing from.

Andrew Criddle

AI reconstruction so far: "The undersigned Archimandrite Kallistos, Librarian of the Central Library of the Holy Community, provides the book of Saint Sabas the Sanctified, Amsterdam edition of 1646, bearing the notation 'Epistles (61) of Saint Ignatius', which includes the endings of the 'Con...

The claim that Christians taught in secret something which contradicted the public doctrine need not (and probably does not) imply that in secret the historicity of Jesus was denied. Celsus might be implying that in secret Christians taught a position on moral behavior very different from their pub...

Papias on Matthew

Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.

may imply teaching by Jesus in Hebrew or Aramaic collected by Matthew and then translated by others into Greek.

Andrew Criddle

The claim that Christians taught in secret something which contradicted the public doctrine need not (and probably does not) imply that in secret the historicity of Jesus was denied. Celsus might be implying that in secret Christians taught a position on moral behavior very different from their publ...

This suggests that Celsus is in touch with actual Jewish tradition how do you deal with the Jewish opponents of Ignatius in Philadelphians 8 ? In other terms: do you consider the "archives" as 'Old Testament' or 'public memories' ? ‘‘I have heard certain men say, If I do not find ( a cert...

Yes, Celsus makes some claim about the "real" biography of Jesus, but it is evident that these supposed "real facts" about Jesus are themselves just alternative imaginings derived from the Gospels. "Let us imagine what a Jew- let alone a philosopher- might say to Jesus: 'Is...

There are significant links between Numenius and the Chaldean Oracles which date from the time of Marcus Aurelius.
Oracle 11 reads

Perceiving the Good itself, where the Paternal Monad exists,
Τἀγαθὸν αὐτὸ νοοῦσα ὅπου πατρικὴ μονάς ἐστι.

Andrew Criddle

IMHO for Irenaeus the paradigm or archetypal Gnostics are the Barbeloites Besides those, however, among these heretics who are Simonians, and of whom we have already spoken, a multitude of Gnostics have sprung up, and have been manifested like mushrooms growing out of the ground. I now proceed to de...

The Fragmentary condition of the Second Apocalypse of James and the reasonably clear evidence of layers within it makes interpretation difficult. However I'm going to make some suggestions. a/ The Redeemer figure (who I think has to be the risen Jesus although not explicitly identified) is the broth...