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Proselytizing on the Blog
Dear Members of the Blog, We have had a long-standing policy on the blog – going back to its inception – of avoiding any kind of proselytizing activity that promotes or urges (on others) particular religious views of any kind. Some comments I receive are borderline, and it is hard to know where the *hard* line actually ought to be. But I’m afraid I have grown lax in the enforcement of the rule. It is perfectly fine on occasion for you (or anyone) to say what you/they really think about religion – since, after all, the blog does focus on (early) Christianity. So an occasional non-proselytizing comment is AOK. But I have decided, in light of the objectives of our mutual endeavor, to return to the original intention and not post comments that are inappropriately designed to urge particularly religious views. I hope you understand! We all know that there are gazillions of other avenues on the Internet for anyone to push their personal religious choices and try to convert others. If you are inclined […]
August 22, 2018
The Sethian Gnostics, from After The New Testament
In my previous post I reproduced the new discussion of Gnosticism in the second edition of my book After the New Testament. In this post and the two to follow I will reproduce my new discussions of the various “types” of Gnostic texts that I include in the anthology. Many scholars would consider this first type the most important historically: it is a group of texts produced by and for Gnostics known by scholars as the “Sethians.” Here is what I say about them in the book. *************************************************************** Sethian Gnostics The group of Gnostics that scholars have labeled the “Sethians” are known from the writings of proto-orthodox heresiologists beginning with Irenaeus (around 180 CE) and from some of the significant writings of the Nag Hammadi library. They were a thriving sect already by the middle of the second century. Members of the group may not have called themselves Sethians. Scholars call them this because among their distinctive features they understood themselves to be the spiritual descendants of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. […]
August 24, 2018
The Valentinian Gnostics from After The New Testament
In my previous post I reproduced my Introduction to the Sethian Gnostics from the second edition of my reader in early Christianity, After The New Testament. One other highly important group of Christian Gnostics are known as the Valentinians. Here is what I say about them in the book *************************************************** Valentinians Unlike the Sethian Gnostics, the Valentinians were named after an actual person, Valentinus, the founder and original leader of the group. We know about the Valentinians from the writings of proto-orthodox heresiologists beginning with Irenaeus and by some of the writings discovered among the Nag Hammadi Library that almost certainly derive from Valentinian authors, including one book that may actually have been written by Valentinus himself (The Gospel of Truth). Valentinus was born around 100 CE and was raised in Alexandria Egypt. He allegedly was a student of the Christian teacher Theudas, who was in turn a disciple of the apostle Paul. Valentinus moved to Rome in the late 130s and there became an influential speaker and teacher. According to some of our early […]
August 26, 2018
Thomasine Christians and Others, From After the New Testament
In this thread of posts I have been reproducing my comments on Gnosticism from the 2nd edition of my anthology, After the New Testament. In addition to the Sethians and the Valentinians, scholars talk about the school of Thomas and about yet other Gnostic groups that are not easy to identify with any of the other three or to group together in any meaningful way. Gnosticism was a messy group of religions! Here is what I say in the Introductions to the Thomasines and the Other Gnostic groups in the book. ***************************************************************** Thomasines A number of books from the early Christian tradition are connected with a figure known as Didymus Judas Thomas. The word “Didymus” means “twin” in Greek; so too the name “Thomas” means “twin” in Aramaic. And so this person is Judas, or Jude, the twin. But the twin of whom? In our earliest surviving Gospel, Jesus himself is said to have a brother who is named Jude (for example, Mark 6). And in later traditions, especially from Syria, this Jude was thought […]
August 27, 2018
The Gospel of Thomas: An Overview
I started this thread with a question about the Gospel of Thomas — almost certainly the most important Gospel not in the New Testament. Now that I have situated “Thomasine” Christianity in the context of the Nag Hammadi Library the broader Gnostic movement – and questioned whether it is actually a kind of Gnosticism, or simply something similar – I can turn to the Gospel itself. This will take three posts. The one today is a broad introduction to its character. I have taken this from my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. The Gospel of Thomas is without question the most significant book discovered in the Nag Hammadi library. Unlike the Gospel of Peter, discovered sixty years earlier, this book is completely preserved. It has no narrative at all, no stories about anything that Jesus did, no references to his death and resurrection. The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus. The sayings are not arranged in any recognizable order. Nor are they set […]
August 28, 2018
Thomas: The Most Important Gospel Outside the New Testament
The Gospel of Thomas is almost certainly the most important Gospel from outside the New Testament. Here I talk about what it’s overarching message is, and how it relates to the Gospels that did make it into the Christian Scripture. Again, this is taken from my textbook on the NT. ************************************************************************************** The Overarching Message of the Book. The meanings of many of Thomas’s sayings are in no way obvious. If they were, they would not be called secret! Even though the book contains nothing like the Sethian or Valentian myths, some of the sayings do seem to reflect roughly analogous understandings of the world and the human’s place in it (see earlier posts on Gnosticism). Within the hearer is an element of the divine—a soul—that had a heavenly origin (it originated “in the place where the light came into being”). This world we live in is inferior at best, and is more appropriately thought of as a cesspool of suffering, “a corpse.” A person’s inner being (the “light” within) has tragically fallen into this […]
August 29, 2018
Thomas, the Synoptic Gospels, and Q
A number of readers have asked about Thomas’s relation to the Synoptic Gospels and the famous Q source — that is, the lost source that both Matthew and Luke used for many of their sayings of Jesus not found in Mark (called Q from the German word Quelle, which means “source”). Here is what I say about those issues in my textbook on the New Testament ***************************************************************** Thomas and the Q Source. The Gospel of Thomas, with its list of the sayings of Jesus (but no narratives) reminds many scholars of the Q source. Some have maintained that Q was also composed entirely of the sayings of Jesus and that the community for whom it was written was not concerned about Jesus’ activities and experiences, including his death on the cross. If they are right, then something like Thomas’s community was already in existence prior to the writing of the New Testament Gospels. Many other scholars, on the other hand, have their doubts. For one thing, it is not true that Q contained no narratives. […]
August 31, 2018
Progress Report on the Afterlife
It is a good time for me to give an update on my progress on my trade book that deals with the early history of heaven and hell. I have not decided on a title yet – that won’t come until much further down the line, after it is actually finished and ready to head to press. At that time, my publisher, my agent, and I will all toss about ideas for titles that are both the catchiest we can come up with and are faithful to the intents and purposes of the book. For now I am continuing to call it “The Invention of the Afterlife” or, on occasion, “Heaven, Hell, and the Invention of the Afterlife.” I know several members of the blog don’t like a title with “invention” in it, since it sound like someone actually *invented* the afterlife. But if I do continue to use the term I’ll explain what I mean by it. There are lots of views about the afterlife. The most common one in our western culture is […]
September 2, 2018
Did Jesus Have a Twin Brother?
Jesus’ twin brother, Thomas….bet you’re wondering, did Jesus have a twin brother? I have mentioned in passing that there were some early Christians who thought that one of Jesus’ brothers, Jude (or Judas: both are translations of the same Greek word), was actually a twin. Not just of anyone, but of Jesus himself. Some readers have expressed surprise in the most succinct way possible, by asking: “Huh??” I talk about the matter in a couple of my previous publications, especially when speaking about early Christian apocryphal texts that deal with the missionary exploits of the apostles after Jesus’ death. We have several of these, including an Acts of Thomas. Like the other apocryphal Acts (such as the more famous Acts of Thecla – an account of the adventures of the apostle’s Paul most famous legendary convert, an upper-class woman named, obviously, Thecla), this one celebrates the virtue of celibacy and sexual renunciation, and it actually uses the idea that Jesus’ had an *identical* twin to advance its views. I’ll explain how it does that in the […]
September 3, 2018
Thomas and His Identical Twin Jesus, in the Acts of Thomas
In my previous post I mentioned the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, a text that assumes Judas Thomas was actually Jesus’ twin brother. Here I can describe the book itself, where the idea that the two are *identical* twins appears to move along the plot in a rather humorous way.. Here is what I say about the matter in my book Lost Christianities. **************************************************** The Acts of Thomas narrates the adventures of Thomas, Jesus’ brother, in his missionary work on the way to and in India. The plot is fairly basic. The apostles draw lots to decide who will go to which region of earth to spread the gospel. The lot for India falls to Thomas, who tells his companions that it is the last place on earth he wants to go: “Wherever you wish to send me, send me, but elsewhere. For I am not going to the Indians!” (Acts of Thomas, 1). The ascended Jesus, however, has other plans for his mortal twin. An Indian merchant arrives … To read the rest […]
September 4, 2018
Opening for Dinner in Durham
As you may remember, I am hosting a dinner for a few members of the blog on my home turf, in Durham NC, on Monday Sept. 24. One of the people who had originally planned on coming has had a conflict and has to back out. So I have one more opening at the table. If you are interested in coming — the first to respond gets the seat! Please contact me not here on the blog, but via email at [email protected] The only requirements are that you be a member of the blog, that you show up willing to talk, and that you pay for your own meal.
September 5, 2018
Did My Loss of Faith Affect my Scholarship?
I ran across this blog post from six years ago that I think is particularly interesting. It’s a question about my personal religious views and my scholarship, and I’m interested to see that now, all these years later, I would pretty much answer it the same! That’s heartening… Here it is: ****************************************************************************** One question I received recently particularly struck me – as it caused me to think for a bit – was about how my loss of faith affected my scholarship. That’s a really good question. And now that I’ve thought it over a bit, I think the answer is a little surprising. To my knowledge, my loss of faith has had almost ZERO effect on my scholarship. That seems weird, since my scholarship is on the New Testament and the history of early Christianity, and you would think that if I were no longer a believer, that it would certainly change how I look at both the NT and the history of the early church. But in fact, I don’t think I have […]
September 6, 2018
Looking for Feedback on My Views about Jesus and the Afterlife
I am now editing my book on the afterlife, and there are a few controversial theses in it. One of them involves the views of Jesus. I’d like to know what you think of my argument, and to see if you find it convincing or not. If not, I’d like to know why. Here is a rough idea of what I’m planning to say (until you instruct me otherwise!) First, Jesus did not think the coming kingdom of God (soon to arrive with the coming of the Son of Man in judgment on the earth) was for faithful Jews only. It was for all those who did God’s will. Many Jews, in fact, would not be allowed to enter. As Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel, “many will come from east and west” to enjoy the heavenly banquet with the Jewish patriarchs in “the kingdom of heaven” but many of those from Israel “will be cast into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:10-12). It is important to note that he […]
September 7, 2018
Jesus on Gehenna
I will give three more posts on what I take to be Jesus’ understanding of the afterlife. The first two have to do with his understanding of Gehenna. What I have to say about it is too much for a single post. So here’s the first of the two. Again, feedback is welcome. Often Jesus expresses the image of “destruction” in highly repugnant terms, indicating that sinners who are excluded from God’s kingdom will not only killed but will be refused decent burial – which, as you will recall, is the worst fate one could have in the ancient world. Even worse than that, Jesus indicates that sinners will be cast, unburied, into the most unholy, repulsive, God-forsaken place that anyone in Israel could imagine, the valley of known as “Gehenna.” Thus, for example, Jesus says that anyone who calls someone “a fool” will be liable to be cast into Gehenna (Matthew 5:22); later he says that it is better to gouge out your eye that sins or amputate your hand and thereby enter the […]
September 9, 2018
Gehenna: Where You Do Not Want to Go
This is the second of my two posts on Gehenna. My ultimate point in this discussion is that when Jesus talked about people ending up there, he did not mean they would roast forever in the first of hell, but that they would end up very badly indeed because (a) they would not receive burial and (b) even worse, their corpses would be thrown into the most hideous literally-god-forsaken place a Jew could imagine. The earliest evidence from outside the Hebrew Bible for Gehenna as a place of divine punishment comes in 1 Enoch 27, written, as we have seen, at least two centuries before the days of Jesus. In one of his encounters with the angel Uriel, Enoch asks why such an “accursed valley” lies in the midst of Israel’s “blessed land.” The angel tell him: The accursed valley is for those accursed forever; here will gather together all those accursed ones, those who speak with their mouth unbecoming words against the Lord…. Here shall they be gathered together, and here shall be their […]
September 10, 2018
Did Jesus Believe Sinners Would Be Annihilated? The Sheep and the Goats
The most difficult passage that I will need to deal with in my discussion of Jesus’ view of the afterlife is the famous teaching about the last judgment of the “Sheep and the Goats,” found only in the Gospel of Matthew, there are reasons for thinking it is something Jesus actually said. Doesn’t it teach eternal torment for the wicked, instead of annihilation? I’ve concluded that the answer is no. See if you find my reasoning persuasive. The passage comes at the tail end of Jesus “apocalyptic discourse” (Matthew 24-25), two chapters of Jesus’ discussion of what will happen at the end of time and of how people need to prepare for it. To conclude the discourse, Jesus describes the coming Day of Judgment, when the great cosmic judge, the Son of Man, sits on his throne, judging all the nations of the world gathered before him (Matthew 25:31-46). This is not merely the judgment of the righteous and wicked in Israel, but of all the pagans as well. The Son of Man separates all […]
September 12, 2018
Would the Disciples Die for A Lie? Proofs for the Resurrection.
Reminiscing about blogs of years gone by, I found this one from almost exactly six years ago. And it’s still relevant for today. The disciples all died for their belief that Jesus was raised from the dead, right? So they must have *known* he was actually raised. No one would die for a lie. Right? Here’s the question a blog member asked, and my response. I still hold to it! *********************************************************************************** QUESTION: Another very very popular evidence put forward for the resurrection is “the disciples would not have died for what they knew was a lie, therefore it must have happened.” I hear this all the time. You note that they really believed they saw Jesus after he died so they were not lying. However, is there evidence (historical or literary) that they were killed because of their belief in Jesus’ resurrection? RESPONSE: Ah yes, if I had a fiver for every time I’ve heard this comment over the years, I could retire to a country-home in Maine…. Several other people have responded […]
September 13, 2018
Opportunity Knocking: A Chance to Read a Draft of My Book
Here’s a unique opportunity. Well, it’s not unique because it’s one you’ve had before. But you get it now again! As most of you probably know, I’m now finishing up my book on the afterlife. The title won’t be decided for a very long time, but at this point ’m rather liking “Heaven, Hell, and the Invention of the Afterlife.” The basic question I address is where the widespread views of heaven and hell came from, that when you die your soul goes to one place or the other. I will be arguing that this is not a view taught in the Old Testament or by Jesus himself. So why did it become the dominant view? Throughout history, the vast majority of Christians believed it; even today, 72% of Americans believe in a literal heaven and 58% in a literal hell. So where did it come from? The book is virtually finished. I’m doing the final edits now – today in fact, barring natural disaster (such as, well, a visit from Florence). I will be […]
September 14, 2018
Peter: First Bishop (Pope) in Rome?
Today I move on to something else (I’ll get to the after life after more life). Here’s an interesting question I received about Peter: the first bishop of Rome? QUESTION: Is there any historical evidence that the apostle Peter was the first Bishop of Rome and that he was martyred upside down on a cross? RESPONSE: Ah, I get asked this one (or these two) on occasion. I dealt with them both in my book Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene (which, by the way, was a blast to write). First I’ll deal with Peter in Rome – which will take a couple of posts; then the question of his martyrdom. Here is what I say about the first in my book ******************************************************************************* In some circles, Peter is best known as the first bishop of Rome, the first pope. In the period I’m interested in for this book, however, there is little evidence to support this view. On the contrary, several authors indicate that Peter was not the first leader of the church there […]
September 16, 2018
Who Was the First Bishop of Rome?
Who was the first Bishop of Rome? I continue from my post of yesterday, in which a reader asked about whether Peter was really the first bishop in Rome (that is, the first Pope). In my next post I’ll deal with the question, also asked, about if we have any solid information about how Peter died (crucified upside-down??) SO, Who was the First Bishop of Rome? According to the second-century Irenaeus, it was a man named Linus, who was appointed to the office by Peter and Paul (Against Heresies 3, 3, 3). In one place the father of church history, Eusebius, appears to agree with this, to some extent, when he says that “the first to be called bishop after the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul was Linus” (Church History, 3, 2); but here Linus is appointed not by Peter, but by someone else, after Peter’s death. And to confuse things even further, just a few paragraphs later Eusebius phrases the matter differently, saying that “Linus … was the first after Peter to be […]
September 17, 2018