Loading...If only one form of early Christianity won the contest for domination, what were the results — what the gains and losses from that “triumph”? And what would have happened to world history if things had gone in another direction? This is my third and final post on my book Lost Christianities, taken from its Introduction (Oxford Press, 2003).
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The Stakes of the Conflict
Before launching into the investigation, I should perhaps say a word about what is, or at least what was, at stake. Throughout the course of our study I will be asking the question: what if it had been otherwise? What if some other form of Christianity had become dominant, instead of the one that did?[1]
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I once read an alternative history that suggested, had Alexander the Great failed to conquer the Persian Empire, it could have expanded into Europe and Zoroastrianism might have become the World’s dominant religion.
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas…. (Don Meredith!)
All this talk about what if this or that happened reminds me of a favorite author of mine: Harry Turtledove. He has written a number of books based n alternative history. What if the South had won the Civil War? What if Truman had agreed with General MacArthur and bombed Chinese bases involved in the Korean war with nuclear weapons? What if the Spanish Armada had succeeded in invading and occupying Great Britain in 1588?
While not related to this blog, i recommend his reading as an escapist alternative to tough political issues, pressing economic matters and the serious and intense discussions on the Bart Ehrman blog.
Maybe Turtledove will write an alternate history where some of these matters such as alternative Christianities and/or the idea that Christianity itself never developed any longevity. I should write him and suggest it.
We need some relaxation from all of this !
Hah. It places us squarely in the realm of the unanswerable, but I love speculation about alternate possible outcomes, partly because it forces us to take into account all of the deeply interwoven causal strands available to us…surprised that I haven’t had history teachers assign essay questions like “if x hadn’t happened, how would the world differ from how it currently is” Or if x hadn’t existed, would y take its place?
It’s like that old question (It may have been Voltaire IIRC asking about Christ even): if so and so never existed, man would have to invent him”. However, if he had been invented entirely, as you and other NT scholars have convinced me, they probably wouldn’t have: had him be from Nazareth; die on a cross; be baptized by someone they to somehow show was the lesser of the two (in contradiction to Jesus’ own words!); invent a brother famous in Jerusalem/any other person or place in his life readers could easily fact-check, etc.
Yet, it makes these things in Jesus’ life almost seem incidental (except culture/era)- as though history was primed for someone – anyone- to play the role of Christ.
If Alexander hadn’t conquered the Persian Empire, I wonder if Judaism could have given rise to another sect that appeals to gentiles and would have spread east through that empire instead of west through Roman lands.
Only one issue though. Zoroastrians don’t accept converts!
My favorite “What if?” Is what would have happened if the Jesus movement had remained a Jewish sect or if Christianity had died aborning? Would some other totalizing system have dominated the West? Or, failing that, how would unobstructed paganism have mutated over the centuries?
Would that we knew.
Certainly worth pondering. A related question might more easily lend itself to answers: why did (“orthodox”) Christianity win? Here perhaps more may be said – with, of course, developmental uncertainties. My best guess is that the dominant branch, much influenced by Paul, preached (sometimes perhaps w/o direct precedent) a set of doctrines/practices tailor-made for the new (esp. post-Alexandrian) realities – ideas that grappled with really fundamental social issues that were in essential need of new thinking. These would include, I’d suggest: a rejection of kinship (hence tribe), sacred land and temple, a re-definition of God’s chosen people to match, a reconceptualization of tribal kingship as universal kingship (and how to get there), a story explaining the soteriological role of messiahship shaped to such a context, and a newly minted vision of the eschaton. Down in the weeds a bit, such doctrines as those of the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Trinity, and the Eucharist were not only formulated in support, but formulated in such a way as to admit of detailed and flexible theoretical conceptualization. Well, that’s a mouth-full. It also took a lot of heavy intellectual lifting.
I think that modern Hinduism gives us a few clues
A question that has been troubling me for a little while is why would two authors, having a gospel in hand (Mark), copying most of it, want to make up another one. I understand their circumstances were different and they were answering to these. Were they writing up what they thought Jesus should have said in order to address these new situations, not caring that he actually did not?
Can they be considered forgeries, although soft ones, just tweaking the narrative enough to suit their views?
If so, why would the oldest gospel not also be a tweaked narrative, having some shreds of historical facts, maybe, but mainly being an account designed to sell some viewpoint? Another “soft” forgery?
I seem to remember there is a composition of what is considered to be the most probable historical data that can be extracted from the New Testament. Where can we get that?
There are numerous studies that try to establish what is historical in the Gospels and what not. My account is in Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Matthew and Luke used several sources, not just Mark, and are using them to retell the story of Jesus in order to lay out their understanding of his significance, emphasizing aspects not emphasized as much in Mark. Just as people do today when they take an account of something that happened and expand or shorten or alter it in order to what they’re interested in saying about it.
Do these other sources that Matthew and Luke used, explain the difference in interpretation of who and what Jesus was? My understanding is that they do not.
So I gather your explanation goes like this: As time passed followers gradually modified their understanding of Jesus, previous ones having some failings revealing themselves as expectations were not met, thus giving rise to new narratives wording things slightly differently to account for this “better” understanding. The authors were not willfully distorting the previous writings, but simply updating them in accord with what they thought should have been written in the first place.
In my opinion, some of them were surely well intentioned, but knowing human nature, I bet some of those authors lied and forged without a qualm. Are there not added passages to the numerous versions we have that show ill intent, an attempt to mislead purposefully?
Yes, sure, any alternative information included by a Gospel fronm a different source necessarily changes their story of Jesus in one way or another. And no, I don’t know of any evidence of ill-intent. I’m not opposed to it in principle, but I don’t see any indication of it.
Reading about this first century Mark papyrus hoax seems to support the idea that some Christians, now and thus probably then, are willing to forge documents with ill intent!
But I also read your explanation that for Christians what you actually believe has a bearing on your standing with God. This brings in a new perspective I did not consider before. Interesting. Is it the same with the Jewish religion? You do say it was new in the Greco-Roman world. But with the Jews?
Most Jews in antiquity did not think of “salvation” as involving life after death; it was something God provided for his faithful here and now, and almost never based on what someone believed but on how they lived.
No, they don’t. they may have helped them reinforce their views, but there’s more to their changes of perspective than the use of different sources.
I think Paul may have been the key. Without his fervor and widespread ministry Christianity in whatever form might have remained a much more localized phenomenon or perhaps even faded away altogether. If he had bought into a different form of Christianity and promoted that one in the same fashion maybe that form would have taken hold. Without Paul though, who knows. Things would almost certainly be different.
On a completely different topic: I’m working my way through old (old!) blog posts, and came across Bart’s reading a paper at the Life of Brian and the Historical Jesus conference.
I’ve tried to watch The Life of Brian but can’t understand the accent at all. I turned on Closed Captioning, but the A.I. doesn’t understand the accent either.
Does anyone know of a transcript of Monty Python’s Life of Brian?
Thanks to all.
(Google it): http://montypython.50webs.com/Life_of_Brian.htm
Here’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!
Whatever “Christianity” had won out – in other words, regardless the Christology – don’t you think history would have developed similarly? I don’t think any of the beliefs would have mattered had there not been men in Rome with organizational skills, charisma, and connection to the Roman elite. I don’t think the specifics of what they believed mattered as much as the organization that developed and the power garnered by those in charge. Constantine would have picked whatever religion offered him the best structure for control of the empire. PS: Some of the beliefs (even Arianism) might have been easier to swallow than the illogical concept of three in one and one in three. Christianity might have spread even faster and held on longer to some areas (i.e. those that turned to Islam) with a Christology easier to talk about.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do scholars have an estimate of the number of potential Christianities that were still in play when Constantine made “Christianity” the state religion?
Did he have to choose among more than one, or did the war of attrition among the various Christianities give him only one choice?
Not really. I suppose it depends on how one counts.
Dr. Ehrman, forgive me. I don’t know how to interpret “…it depends on how one counts.”
Is Jewish Christianity *one* alternative form of Christianity or four, five, or more? Is Gnosticism one thing or half a dozen things or twenty things or thirty-six things or….? Depends how you count.
Dr Ehrman- Re: ‘Is Jewish Christianity *one* alternative form of Christianity or four, five, or more?’ In the modern iteration of “Jewish-Christianity” (Talmidaism), we already have a couple of sects (Ebionites and Massorites), and we feel that it is important that we get along. We’ve made an agreement that we should never hate on each other, but love one another as Jesus taught. Furthermore, our broader ethos is that we should foster peaceful co-existence with all religions, in our efforts to spread the peace of God’s Kingdom. Religion today has become so much about what people hate, and it doesn’t have to be that way. The nature of human beings is that there will always be differences, and we can’t stop differences of opinion from happening – diversity and difference is the strength of the human species. Bottom line is that we are not trying to ‘win out’, we are trying to lower the ideological temperature so to speak, so that everyone wins
If some other form of Christianity had won, Christmas Carols would be different.
And who knows what Santa would be like…
Thanks Prof. Ehrman. I’ve really enjoyed this series of posts and will be picking up Lost Christianities.
Had the Yaldabaoth (sp?) creation myth prevailed, do you think it may have been a more acceptable explanation of suffering in the world than the most commonly accepted Judeo-Christian myth?
Best,
Bill
I would say it’s internally coherent at least.
Do you see the new kingdom being described in Rev 22:1-9 as being the same as Rev 21:10- 22:5? Or John describing two different places?
You’ll need to summarize the views of these verses that you suspect may be divergent for others to know what we’re referring to.
Well I see them so far, as being detailed as two different places entirely ,a study of the topic and original language as far as I can tell doesn’t rule this out. Surprisingly I haven’t come across any work that explores this view. I know people pick-up on things differently as they read or mis-read. I just wanted your opinion off the top of your head, a simple, yes it’s possible or no it’s impossible or the usual we don’t know a, maybe yes, maybe no, would be a big help. Thank You for your time Bart.
Hello!
What is the right interpretation of figures in the Bible (we see it in OT, but also of Paul) that thought of themselves as called by God before they came out of their mothers womb?
What do you think about people using this as an argument against abortion?
Isaiah 49:1 NRSV
[1] Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
I deal wiht this at length in my course When Does Life Begin, if you want a full answer. Short story: if you actually look closely at what the verses say, they don’t say what people usually say they say. E.g., they say that God knew the person BEFORE he was in his mother’s womb (jer. 1:5). If taken literally, that doesn’t mean the person existed starting with conception but says that he existed BEFORE conception. But few peole think we pre-existed conception. So it’s metaphorical. And Isa. 49: keep reading. It’s not an individual that is being referred to as speaking but the entire nation of Israel
Hi bart
In 1 corintians 15:5 paul clearly says that jesus apeared to the 12 diciples of jesus, but historicly he problebly apeared to peter and mayby james. So does this mean he has not speak with peter apout the other apostles and gets this information from some other source?
We don’t know. But I think when he says the twelve he must mean the twelve (or th e11).
Hi bart
in 1 corinthians 15:5 paul is speaking apout apearenses to the apostles but is it possible that he is writting that jesus apeared not to the 12 but to random teahers called the apostles?
Seems unlikely. He never calls random teachers that.
My community, the Talmidi Jewish community (to which modern Ebionites belong), are made up of 3 groups: Talmidi Israelites (full converts & born Jews); Godfearers (Gentiles who do their best to follow Torah, but are not circumcised); and Talmidi Noahides (Gentiles who don’t practise the rituals or customs of Torah, but follow the ethics of the Israelite faith and of Jesus – they practise their ethics-based faith within the culture of their birth; that’s our answer to the question of, ‘Do you have to convert to Judaism to follow Jesus? No). If we had won out, more native cultures would remain, and there would be no need to convert to Islam (since we accept Yeshua as a fully human prophet); consequently, fundamentalist Islam would not be as strong as it is today. The focus of religion would be more ethics-based and rational, since we are not a fundamentalist religion – the Jewish ideals of social justice, ethical government, and kindness to the poor are of central importance to us, so I also think that the world would be less right-wing, less extremist. We don’t agree with Paul’s theology, so spirituality would be a lot easier to stomach
No other form of Christianity needed to WIN. Reasonably many forms of christianity could co-exist. People could determine which they prefer or choose to not accept any form.
The problem I suppose is that each of the forms of Christianity claimed it was right and the others wrong, which made co-existence difficult since all of them were also out to win converts.
Bart,
Sixty-plus years of research at UVA Medical School Division of Perceptual Studies shows rather convincingly that reincarnation really does happen. The fact that large religions (Hindu among them), with many more than a billion followers in aggregate that have this belief, should not be ignored. So, God did know some of our true spiritual selves before we were conceived by our current parents. Research shows that some of us had another name and another body in another lifetime, remembered events from that life between ages 2 and 6, and then forgot those memories as our brains were flooded by new information. Christianity — nor any other religion — is the source of all knowledge and wisdom. Everyday each us learns new things. Consider the evidence before you reject reincarnation — Read some of what Jim B. Tucker, M.D. has written. Your spiritual self “drives” your body, just as you body drives your car to take your spiritual self wants to go. When your body dies, your spiritual body continues to exist. This is what Christianity and other religions teach. Maybe God reincarnates rather than punishes those who fail to help others.
Bill Steigelmann
As far as reincarnation is concerned: while many religions include such belief structures in their doctrine, any real scientific research to try to prove such doctrine has been inconclusive and/or totally invalid. Studies in the 1970’s at Duke University and I believe also NC Chapel Hill wherein people were taken through so-called past life regression and/or were quizzed with scientific exactness about such experience were inconsistent at best and for the most part fraudulent.
In addition many celebrities such as Shirley Maclaine and Willie Nelson who claim such experiences always imagine themselves as important entities: kings, princesses, ladies in waiting ETC. A real study of the exact doctrines of such religions shows that this importance level would be rare. People who do bad things will come back as a lower life form: birds, insects, rodents ETC.
So here is my immediate past life. I was a slug/snail. I lived in a backyard in St. Louis for two days: 10/06/53-10/08/53. I was doing well until it rained. I came up from just below ground surface for a drink and a dog ate me.
Just for fun, look up Generic Subjective Continuity and/or Tom Clark Naturalism. ” ‘I’ was a slug/snail …” fits perfectly within that (unproveable) hypothesis!
I used to believe in reincarnation years ago. Now I’m more open to traditional Orthodox Jewish views on the afterlife. I’m not Jewish by the way.
Maybe the other way around?
Had this version of Christianity not been commandeered by or adopted by or leveraged by the Roman Empire, it might not have established itself as the official version of Christianity and the dominant religion of the European Middle Ages… and so on.
Mr. Ehrman, Christianity is instead of the synoptic gospels. Have you thought of that? Have you thought of the implications? Deeply honest questions.
What If instead of serious study of Einstein immediately had cropped up Einteinianity? It would be a different world. We would have discounted the man and his teachings and instead had a religion.
The list of possible examples is endless.
No one seems to have considered that the man Jesus and his teachings and example in the synoptic gospels, are the most brilliant example and teachings for mankind that there ever were. And that diluting them, or dismissing them as a religion, has been catastrophic.
And whereas no one seems to have considered that explicitly, some have lived it substantially. Cutting past the Bible and going right to the 3 gospels to inform their very being. The likes of tolstoy, gandhi, Martin Luther King jr, Dorothy Day….
What if immediately Einstein had been dismissed as mere Einteinianity, but after eons someone took he and his findings seriously, like science? The transforming brilliance would still be there to be Unleashed for all its influence.
Please Ponder this seriously and share with me your deep thoughts? Thank you. James
I would say lots of people think of Jesus as a brilliant teacher and an example. I do, and I’m not a Christian by religion.
I appreciate your reply. I can yearn, can’t i? I can. I can yearn, that given your influential position, extraordinary intellect scholarship and soul, you will consider when appropriate infusing the distinction between Christianity and the historical man Jesus, his teachings and example. I don’t know anyone of stature that does that. As a consequence, all the evidence is that Jesus was not a man, just an artifact of christianity.
Your work has been tremendously helpful to me, but it could be infinitely more helpful to the world if you would as appropriately liberally distinguish between Jesus the man, and the artifact Jesus that Christianity dismisses. A meer sacrificial lamb, a mere fulfillment of some prophecy. A Meer god. Such sacrilege. Such tragedy.
Hugs, atheist disciple james.
PS. Even before this comment which I’m glad you replied to, I posted similarly on another of your posts, but it was buried as a comment to someone else. I hope you can find it and reply?
I’d say most of my work on the Jesus attempts to differentiate between the historical Jesus and the figures that emerge in the teachings and writings of the church.
For your other query, go ahead and make it again — that would be the easiest way for people to see it and my reply.
Mr. Ehrman, I find myself compelled to use one of my other comments. Two per month I guess.
I find that you dismissed the question.
Lots of people would say that Jesus is a brilliant teacher and example?
I presume you mean like some third or fourth rate teacher or example. Because most certainly on any world stage in any world domain including religion, especially religion, or philosophy, or psychology… there are prominent names, his never comes up in serious achievement oeiented conversation. Never.
I am simply being honest. I wish I saw it differently. I wish it could be seen differently.
And you certainly have the right to see it differently. That it is entirely appropriate and constructive for the human species that in the fields of psychology, religion, social planning, social service, never ever ever does he come up for serious consideration and everyone’s fine with that.
And a curious thing. You mentioned teacher and example. You don’t mention important original thinker. Einstein might be mentioned as an adequate teacher but a great thinker a great original creative thinker.
As I’ve said you are profoundly helpful to me. I hope you reflect seriously on what I’ve said here. And help me understand. James
You’re saying that on the world-stage level Jesus’ name never comes up as one of the most significant teachers and example in history? OK, then, methinks we are going to disagree on that. (Not on whether he was one but whether he is widely regarded as one.) You do know that two billion people in the world claim to follow his teachings and try to emulate his example? Is there someone else in history about whom that is true?
I really appreciate your replying. Very much. This 74 year old ridiculously serious individual, me, james, I am absolutely saying that virtually no one, including you based on your comment here, we can’t even begin to realize how we dismiss jesus.
One way I grasp it, 2 billion people believe IN jesus. Practically not one of them believes him.
Maybe some people worship einstein, but not serious physicists. They believe what he he says! And they test it, and follow it. Nobody Does that with jesus. Not 0001% of 2 billion followers.
The physicists seriously, arduously, pour over every word and build their lives around it as physicists.
Who does that with jesus? Who lives as though Jesus gave us the exact prescription for how to achieve the Supreme joyful Abundant Life in this world, in the synoptic gospels? Phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence?
A testable verifiable hypothesis.
People hang on every word that Warren Buffett utters. Not to hear it in their own terms, to understand the world in his terms! No one does that with jesus!
It would be easy to dismiss what I’m saying. But with a little work one would see that it is objectively fact what I’m saying.
James
Dr. Ehrman, I am not trying to argue a point, but trying to be sure 2 people see both things that are there to see, the paradigm, the young woman and mature woman.
My earlier lost comment to you:
Christianity is the conflation of Jesus and thousands of people before and since. For truth seekers, that’s atrocity. It irenders Jesus a non-human, a nothing.
Rendering him non-human has been a devistating success. He discovered and showed a revolutionary way of Being. Identifying with DNA given, god-given, capacity for Humanity, above and beyond every other capacity Within us. Ivm a human being he repeatedly said and lived. He made himself Humanity personified, what he called the holy spirit, soul, father Within him.
The fundamental importance of this revolutionary way of being, actually our way st birth, is that it is inherently joyful, to be our Humanity no matter what. Even in the hell world of his day. Even in the hell world of our day.
And it was incomprehensible to the adults of his day, and now, our own, in our complex cultures that optimize for head and flesh, not humanity, in charge. Cerebral cortex & hypothalamus dominating the limbic system. James
I guess I didn’t respond because it didn’t look like a question. My sense is that most people think of Jesus as very human indeed.
This is a bit off topic, but I’ll try to relate it indirectly. For Dr. Ehrman: did you read James Tabor’s The Jesus dynasty? In section/chapter 12 he brings up the idea that the Eucharist as presented in John and by Paul was not the original ceremony. He refers to a first century or early second century document found in Greece in 1873 called The didoche (teaching) that gives a different prayer commemorating the eating of bread and wine. The wine represents the cup of the vine of David given as a gift to Israel and the bread represents Jesus marriage to his church.
Do you give any credence to the idea that Paul changed this to the body and blood symbolism and negated the original Eucharist prayer?
Yes, the Didache is an important document of early Christianity (I translated it in my edition of the Apostolic Fathers; you can find the relevant portion with a brief introduction in my book After The New Testament, 2nd ed. pp. 460-61; a bit more information can be found on pp. 436-37). It probably dates to around the year 100 CE.
The Didache does record two prayers spoken by the author’s community at the communion meal, one over the bread and the other over the cup (ch. 9), and then a prayer of thanksgiving after everyone had eaten (ch,. 10). The prayers are not like the words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper as recorded in the Synoptics and in 1 Cor. 11:22-24.
BUT the passages in the New Testament are not prayers to be said at the meal, or the author’s audiences or when later Christians celebrated it They instead indicate what Jesus said at the time he instituted it. Moreover, the Didache does not indicate that the prayers were used everywhere or that they was the “original” prayer said or that they were what Jesus himself said when instituting the meal. They are believers’ thanks for what Jesus has done.
Since they are attested much later than the NT sources and are not words of institution by Jesus but prayers by his later followers for him, I don’t think that they were likely to have been earlier than the NT accounts or developed from or into them. But maybe I’m misunderstanding the argument.
Hi Dr. Ehrman,
Thanks for responding so quickly to an old topic. Tabor seems to be saying that the passage in the Didoche _was_ the original attitude of the early Christians. He points out that Paul was Greek educated and was undoubtedly familiar with ancient pagan rites and he says that blood symbolism was a distinct part of Pagan rites and that a group of Jews newly converted to the teachings of Jesus would never have used such things as blood rites to symbolize something like the new covenant.
He notes all the admonitions against eating blood under the Torah and say that this would truly be an anathema to newly converted Jews.
So far as I know, early Christians — Jewish or not — did not think drinking the wine wsa literally drinking blood. But apart from that, I don’t think Paul’s account of the words at the Last Supper are alterations of an account that does not discuss what Jesus said at the Last Supper.