Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

There may have been a panoply of saviour figures prior to or concurrently outside "the early church". This sums it up well (as part of a summary & commentary on Richard Carrier's book ' OHJ '). Note the reference to henotheism - "... Christianity fit right in to the trend of other...

This is interesting - Even if 'Peter' is invented, he stands in for 'the original Group of what will become Christianity' , in the gospels. This "Original Group", however, has NO IDEA that their travails will be turned into a Roman State Religion. They are anti-Herodian, Anti-Roman -SEDITI...

Some interesting passages from Bird's recent blog-post - ... I believe there was widespread and near-immediate belief on two key christological fixtures: (1) The identification of Jesus with the God of Israel (though in what precise sense remained to be worked out); and (2) The identification of Jes...

Why is the term 'original' being used for *this set of texts* anyway? They can't all be original. Maybe none of them are. I'm pretty sure about the latter when it comes to what they tell us in the way they reached us. Yes, good point (my question was a general, rhetorical one; not one to put you on...

This is disingenuous, too - So it's not possible or very unlikely that the short Syriac text 'cut out' these references to secretaries of Ignatius any more than Marcion 'cut out' Luke and all the references in OUR Pauline letters to Paul entrusting 'helpers' in his letters. It's false equivalence an...

I agree with what you say Ulan, although my impression of the the term "nothing but original" is it means 'totally original'.

Why is the term 'original' being used for *this set of texts* anyway? They can't all be original. Maybe none of them are.

I'm intrigued you're posting pics of modern stryctures

iskander wrote: .. The Christian churches of the first century would have been domestic dwellings ...

Yes, it is commonly asserted that early Christian churches were house-churches (though I suspect this is to try to explain the lack of archaeological evidence of any christian churches for several centuries)

Do we have a list of those 2nd or 3rd century people who 'knew' the Didache? +/or lists of (ii) those who didn't know it; or (iii) may have known it? Clement of Alexandria in http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm says It is such an one that is by Scripture called a thief. It is therefore said,...

The temple of Serapis in Pergamum does not exclude the existence of a Jewish Christian church. No it doesn't, but such a "Jewish Christian church" could not have been in that temple - the Red Basilica - in the 2nd or 3rd centuries, as it was built for the Egyptian gods in the 2nd century ...