Loading...Now that I have discussed the themes, emphases, authors and occasions of the “Johannine epistles” (1, 2, and 3 John) I can provide some suggestions for further reading. These are all important works written by scholars for non-scholars. I have given brief annotations for each book to give you a sense of what it’s about and so help you decide which, if any, might be worth your while.
I have divided the list into three sections:
- Books that provide important discussion of one or more of these Catholic epistles, and of the problem of persecution dealt with in 1 Peter.
- Commentaries that give lengthy introductions to all matters of importance about the book of Acts and then go passage by passage to provide more detailed interpretation (that’s where you can dig more deeply into “what does this particular word actually mean?”; “what is the real point of this passage”; how does this passage relate to what Luke says elsewhere in his two-volume work or to what we can find in other parts of the New Testament?”; “where do we find similar ideas expressed in other writings in the Greek and Roman worlds, whether pagan or Jewish?” and so on.
- Online Resources. A good reliable one! If you turn to other materials online, caveat emptor. And since online there is no emptoring, you need to caveat with particular diligence.
A good place to start for the three Epistles would be the somewhat fuller discussions in my textbook, co-authored in the 8th edition with Hugo Mendez, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction (Oxford University Press).
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I wrote a little poem this morning and was thinking of you and this blog all the way through writing it:
God is Love
God is Peace
Does God want us – on our knees???
The Chruch does
Is the church Love??
Is this book, the bible, all they say it’s made of ???
Thanks for reading. 🙂
Dear Dr. Ehrman,
Given the question: What does “Marsilio Fiscino reintroduced Hermetic ideas into Christian thought” mean?
and the question:
Was there Hermeticism in the first and second centuries of Christianity?
I’m getting the answer:
Yes, Hermeticism was alive and active in the first and second centuries CE, overlapping directly with the earliest centuries of Christianity. In fact, both movements were developing in the same cultural and intellectual environment — the religiously diverse, syncretic world of the Roman Empire.
During Christianity’s early centuries, Hermetic texts and early Christian writings were circulating simultaneously, often in the same cities, especially Alexandria, Egypt.
This shared environment explains why some early Christian writings and Hermetic texts sound strikingly similar — they were grappling with the same big questions: 1) What is the nature of God? 2) How was the cosmos created? and 3) How can humans be saved or enlightened?
Lactantius (c. 250–325 CE) quoted the Hermetica and even claimed Hermes Trismegistus was a pagan prophet who foresaw the coming of Christianity. However, Hermeticism was rejected by Augustine.
QUESTION: The Gospel of John speaks of the Logos which could be Middle Platonism. What part of how the cosmos created, then, would be Hermetic?
Steefen, author of Historical Accuracy
It’s not clear how far the prologue of John is connected with Platonic thought; more frequenlty it is tied to Stoic thought, especially since the “Word” actually *becoming* flesh (not just appearing to be) seems to runcunter to most known forms of Platonic thought. But yes, Hermetic thought is often thought to be an important pre-cursor to Gnosti thinking; there are lots of similarities.
Raymond Brown also has a small work called, The Gospel and Epistles of John: A Concise Commentary, that’s a great resource for those who want a very focused discussion on these interesting letters.
Somewhere back in the stacks, we had a conversation about how husbands are supposed to treat their wives; Love them as themselves and never be harsh with them, etc., all according to the NT. I’m listing the verses here in case anyone wants to read them: Ephesians 5:25, Ephesians 5:28, Ephesians 5:33, Colossians 3:19, 1st Peter 3:7, 1st Timothy 5:2.
One of the things we talked about was how so many bible reading Christians seem to be unaware of these verses, and why.
I keep thinking about another NT concept relating to the subject that again so many bible readers seem not to be aware of. This is about ‘separations’ as it’s expressed and allowed in the NT. The NT allows for separations between husbands and wives. It states this particularly for women, though one supposes it pertains to both. Separations are not supposed to be a precursor to divorce. People are supposed to remain single or be reunited.
It would go a long way towards preventing domestic abuse and domestic violence if people were aware of and accepted this-these concepts.
How to do this economically is another subject. A shorter work week would give us all more jobs and enable “Christian” lifestyles.
I found your debate with Justin Bass to be both intriguing and frustrating as Bass continually interrupted and failed to understand what history is and to engage with the core points of the argument. Bass’s main argument was that the resurrection and spreading knowledge of it was responsible for the huge growth of Christianity.
Alice Roberts’ new book, Domination, cynically, but more plausibly, argues that it was human incentives and the deliberate targeting of the upper classes by Christian evangelists creating a powerful and rich corporate-like. Anyone who thinks the church was about anything “other than money and power”, she says, is suffering from Stockholm syndrome.” Constantine and Theodosius simply made heresy possible paving the way.
A question I’ve been interested in is whether you can have blasphemy or heresy without orthodoxy imposed by the power of the state. One can argue that religious views that differ widely have thrived in the United States precisely because we have no state religion, nor governmental heresy, something the Christian Nationalists strive to rectify.
*The atheist simply says blasphemy is a victimless crime. 🙂
I’d say you can definitely hve charges of heresy and blasphemy without state control. Within Christianity they were both relatively commonplace well before the conversion of Constantine.
Dr. Ehrman,
1
Chrysostom uses the shepherd metaphor politically — the best king nurtures like a shepherd.
Hermetica – Poimandres uses it cosmically — the Divine Mind guides all souls as a universal shepherd.
Jesus uses it — “I am the Good Shepherd; I lay down my life for the sheep.”
The shared imagery reflects a common cultural vocabulary in the first and second centuries CE, especially in Alexandria.
2
When Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born again, this echoes Hermetic spiritual rebirth.
In Hermetica, Poimandres (Book I), rebirth comes through union with the Divine Mind.
In Book XIII, rebirth is described as a mystical, inner experience of enlightenment, identical to what Jesus describes as being born of the Spirit.
The language and imagery of spiritual rebirth were already present in the first and second centuries CE, not only in Christianity but also in Hermetic philosophy circulating in places like Alexandria.
In any of your books, do you discuss Gospel of John and Hermetica?
No. It’s because I don’t think the author of John was influenced directly by any of the Hermetica. Many of these ideas (say “rebirth” or “regeneration” or “saviors as shepherds”) were in wide circulation in a variety of forms and in a range of times of places. Similarity does not require “source,” so in my view there needs to be sustained similartities that are hard to explain otherwise (e.g., Matthew’s relation to Mark; or Gnostic parallels to Middle Platonism to lead to suspicion of “dependence”
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Jesus is the Logos (Jn 1:1-3) and the Shepherd (Jn 10: 1-21).
The Divine Mind descends into the world like a shepherd.
The Shepherd gathers lost souls back to their origin and the path to eternal life–spiritual rebirth. (Parable of the Lost Sheep)
Once we leave Gos of John and go to the Parable of Lost 1 of 99 sheep, we get the DIVINE RESCUE MISSION/MINISTRY–Christianity.
An answer to the question, Is the term Logos Platonic, Stoic, or Hermetic? is:
The term Logos is deeply layered and existed before Christianity with different but overlapping meanings. It is not purely Platonic, Stoic, or Hermetic, but all three traditions used it, and each shaped how early Christians (especially the Gospel of John) understood it.
Hermetic Logos: Mind, Word, Light/Life, Teacher and Guide (note Jesus as Teacher)
Hermetic Logos is very close to John 1:1-4
“In the beginning was the Word (Logos),
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
Through him all things were made,
and without him was not anything made that was made.”
All three traditions agree that Logos is divine rationality at work in the cosmos and connects the highest realm (divine) with the lower realm (material).
Christianity radically reframes Logos making it a person, Jesus.
Question posed to Dr. Ehrman:
In any of your books, do you discuss Gospel of John and Hermetica?
Dr. Ehrman:
No. It’s because I don’t think the author of John was influenced directly by any of the Hermetica.
Steefen:
FOLLOW-UP QUESTION: And none of your books tie Jesus (Christ is King) as shepherd to Dio Chrysostom’s discourses on kingship where the best king is like a shepherd?
If the answer to this question is no, then Jesus (king Jesus Christ) as the great shepherd of the sheep is created outside the context of Hermetica and Dio Chrysostom as if Jesus was pastoral like the shepherds in his nativity story (Bethlehem, Judea) or pastoral in Nazareth, Galilee.
I certainly don’t think the author of John would have had any knowledge of Dio Chrysostom, no. But not knowing one source or another does not tell you anything about what he meant by what he talked about.