John Byron and The Myth of the Church's Golden Age

Over at The Biblical World Dr John Byron has a post on the Myth of the Church's Golden Age. Briefly noting a few of the controversies in the early Church he concludes:

The fact is, there never was a golden age of the church. The New Testament church was just as messed up as the 21st century church. And I take that as an encouragement rather than a rebuke from the past. The early church was full of greedy, bickering, sinful people who did not get along with each other, did not listen to their leaders and even split off from one another when disagreements became too heated. And sometimes their leaders said bad things about each other. Let's not forget that all of Paul's opponents were not non-believers, but followers of Jesus who happened to disagree with the apostle. Not unlike what we experience today. 

To all those attacking disputes within modern day churches: they are simply being true to their aims in restoring the church of the NT.

Cf. Craig L. Blomberg, "The New Testament Definition of Heresy (or when do Jesus and the Apostles really get mad?)", JETS (2002) 45/1 59-71

Scripture of the Early Church (Quote of the Day)

Ronald E. Heine writes:

"The Christians of the first century and the first half of the second had no question that the Old Testament was their Scripture. As the apostolic writings began to make their appearance, they were held in high regard. This was especially true of the Gospels. The Old Testament, however, continued to hold the undisputed position of Scripture in the minds of the Christians. Gradually, the Gospels appear to have been elevated to a status of equal authority with the Old Testament in Christian worship because they contained the words of Jesus. Nevertheless, it was the Old Testament that gave significance to the story of Jesus in the minds of the early Christians, and they continued to turn to it both to define and to justify their faith in him...

The Old Testament had a tremendous influence on the making of the early Christian mind; it was Scripture for the earliest Christians even before the Gospels were considered to be Scripture. According to the accounts given in the New Testament, the Old Testament was the earliest means for telling the story of Jesus. When we Christians think of returning to the sources of our faith, this earliest Christian Bible must head the list of those sources of we will misunderstand and misrepresent our origins."

 Ronald E. Heine, Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future). (Baker Academic, 2007). 45, 46.

OT in the Early Gentile Church

These are just some quick notes from an email exchange with a friend regarding  her belief that the early gentile Church had no use of the Old Testament. Noting the search terms that get people here, this post might be useful! While NT scholars and historians use the NT to reconstruct earliest Christianity as best we can, the early church writings remind us that the OT was the scripture of the first Christians for at least 100 or so years.

Early church writers and theologians often commented on the Old Testament as "sacred scripture" and Christian communities which were most likely predominately gentile preserved the Old Testament (we have quite a few 2nd and 3rd century fragments; a 1st century Psalms manuscript is probably the earliest of Christian provenance.) Our earliest Bibles (e.g. Codex Sinaiticus) included the OT and they continue to do today.

In 2 Timothy 3:16 the author exhorts his audience to continue in the practice they have learnt from the beginning:

"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it  and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." 2 Tim 3:14-17 (ESV)

Clement of Rome refers to the Old Testament as "scripture"  and “sacred scripture” and uses it as the  source for much of his theology and teaching. A few random examples from his Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Clement) from the end of the first century:

• He uses Psalms and Job to explain his theology of resurrection (26)
• At 28 he states that God sees all things, quoting Psalm 139:7-10
• At 45 he gives a high theology of the Old Testament exhorting the Corinthians to, "Look carefully into the Scriptures, which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit."
• At 53 he tells us that the Corinthians he is writing to "understand well the Sacred scriptures." He quotes and paraphrases Exodus 32 and Deuteronomy 9.

In the latter half of the 2nd century, Justin Martyr recounts an engagement with a Jew named Trypho. They discuss the Old Testament, issues of the 'New Covenant' (Jeremiah 31:31-32/Dialogue 11), the nature of the law and ritual before Moses, etc. Justin wrote:

For these words have neither been prepared by me, nor embellished by the art of man; but David sung them, Isaiah preached them, Zechariah proclaimed them, and Moses wrote them. Are you acquainted with them, Trypho? They are contained in your Scriptures, or rather not yours, but ours. For we believe them; but you, though you read them, do not catch the spirit that is in them.(Dialogue 29)

We also know that Greek and Latin speaking Christians learnt Hebrew in order to properly understand the Old Testament. It should be noted that most Jews and Christians of the time thought this was unnecessary as it was believed that the Septuagint Greek  translation was an authoritative translation.[1]  Origen in the third century learnt Hebrew to study the OT indetail. We have surviving copies of his homilies on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. We also know that the Syriac translation of the OT known as the Peshitta was used by gentile Christians such as Aphraat and Ephrem.

If Luke was in fact a gentile his intimate knowledge of the Septuagint is noteworthy. As there is much I have not read of the early Church Fathers I can only say so much.

---

[1] Philo, Life of Moses 2.37-40; Letter of Aristeas; Josephus, Antiquities 12; Irenaus, Against Heresies;  Justin Martyr, First Apology, etc.

Quote of the Day - I. Howard Marshall on Bousset's Christology

From The Origins of New Testament Christology by I. Howard Marshall (1990 reprint):

His (Bousset's) appeeal to religious parallels from outside Judaism easily turns parallels into influences, and much of the details reconstructions of myths that have been held to influnce the early Church has been shown to rest on a misreading of the sources. Finally, his attempt to distance Paul from Jesus by means of a hypothetical gentile church acting as intermediary must be pronounced a failure. (pp.18-19)

Earliest Christianity: One Church or Warring Sects?

Want to read  about unity and diversity in the early church?  Don't have time to read James D.G. Dunn's massive Unity and Diversity in the New Testament? Sick of Ehrman's focus and glorification of second and third century groups? Can't be bothered to wait for me to finish Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity: The Case for Proto-orthodoxy?

Well, then you're just lazy busy. In that case, there is a nice primer in James D.G. Dunn's The Evidence for Jesus. He devotes a chapter to the topic titled "Earliest Christianity: One Church or Warring Sects?"

I must say the title in itself is interesting, however, a tad misleading. In my opinion, it would be wrong to imply that some sort of sectarianism or diversity precludes the concept of "one Church" as, say, a Protestant would understand the term. As he makes the case, there was diversity in earliest Christianity.  But does diversity preclude the existence of a clear orthodoxy? I maintain no - and this is a point that Dunn leaves hanging for far too long in a work intended for such an audience.

In my own life, I wouldn't agree with some what my fellow Christians believe - however, these are all too the periphery. As a Christian who loves the early (in some cases pre-scriptural) creeds, I believe such a form is sufficient to maintain orthodoxy. (I can probably say this with more confidence than those with a theological background :))

So, after all the gloom of telling us that Paul was not the only guy in the early church and that there were people opposing him in expression of the faith, we finally get a touching moment on early Christian unity:

What united the first Christians more than anything else was their belief in Jesus - in Jesus as the climax of God's ongoing purpose for man's redemption, the one whom God had raised from the dead and exalted as Lord, the man who demonstrated most clearly what God is like. Clustered round this central distinguishing belief of the first Christians were a number of others on which they would all have agreed in essence, even if their outworking in fuller formulation and practical application diverged in differing degrees: God, the Creator and the Father of Jesus Christ, as one; salvation through faith in Christ; the experience of the Spirit; the Old Testament as scripture and the traditions of Jesus, both to be treasured as authoritative for faith and life; Christianity's continuity with Israel, the people of God; practice of baptism in the name of Jesus and of the Lord's Supper in remembrance of him; and the need for an ethical outworking of faith through love. Such is the heartland of Christianity still. (James D.G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus p.99)

But before ending I must add that I really believe that Dunn's image of first century diversity is clouded by his approach to early Christology. Dunn's view which rips the divine Christology from Paul and his favour for developing Christology within the 'Hellenist' Churches forces him to over emphasise some differences between those zealous for the law vs Paul. For example, on the later Jewish Christian sects (such as the Ebionites) he states:

For the Jewish Christians of the second and third centuries, Jesus was simply a prophet, James the first sole leader of the Jerusalem church was the great hero, and Paul who had transformed the faith by opening the door so wide to the gentiles was a renegade and apostate.(p.96)

However, can Dunn really argue this? I greatly disagree with Dunn's Christological approach and I see no convincing evidence that the Jerusalem church saw Jesus as anything less than exalted as part of the divine identity of YHWH.

As Larry Hurtado has shown in his extensive works on early Christology, "Devotion to Jesus appeared too early, and originated among circles of the early Jesus movement that were comprised of - or certainly dominated by - Jews...." (Lord Jesus Christ, p. 42). Furthermore, Jesus' divine identity was classifed in terms of first century Judaism in such an exalted manner. As Richard Bauckham states, “the highest possible Christology – the inclusion of Jesus in the unique divine identity – was central to the faith of the early church even before any of the New Testament writings were written, since it occurs in all of them.” ("God Crucified" in Jesus and the God of Israel p.19)

So, in essence, read Dunn on early Christian diversity with his Christological view in mind.

The Creativity of Elaine Pagels

We all know Elaine Pagels, neo-Gnostic extraordinaire, has a habit of being, well, very creative when it comes to dealing with the relationship between orthodoxy and heresy in 'early' Christianity.

So, today at my wrath is a little dip into the Gospel of John and its use in the debate of orthodoxy and heresy in 'early' Christianity. (Note, by early, of course, I mean not all too early Christianity addressed by Bauer, Ehrman and Pagels in their respective works.) As I have often noted, the Gospel of John reflects metaphor and monotheism of Second Temple Judaism. For example, the issues of the divine Word (logos), light and darkness, etc can all be linked to the environment of Second Temple Judaism. The so-called Hellenistic prologue engaging with the divine Logos is simply a Jewish Christian exegesis on Genesis expressing Jesus' identity as (1) a part of the unique identity of YHWH (analogous to Wisdom) and (2) in terms familiar to Jews in the period (e.g. the light-darkness metaphors of John with 1QS). As I contend, we have no reason to suggest Hellenistic concepts or later gnostic dualism.

Now, we may very well excuse those who did not appreciate the 'Jewishness' of the fourth Gospel pre-DSS days or while it was fashionable to date it late pre-P52. Yet despite these recent discoveries and approach of recognising John as "the gospel most clearly engaged with Judaism" and "perhaps the most Jewish of the canonical gospels" we still have the same arguments being pushed. Pagels and Koester are just so hesitant to let the issue of John as necessitating Gnostic communities to drop despite Bauer's thesis on Gnosticism in Egypt falling on itself. As noted by Roberts (Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt) we simply don't have the physical evidence to backup the conjecture that Egypt was majority Gnostic in the 'period of silence'. Furthermore, as Llewellyn has shown in New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity vol 7, there is nothing to suggest that the Egyptian community was Gnostic by use of the Gospel of John. It has been shown that the use of John in the period of alleged Gnosticism was no different to that of when we knew it was dominated by orthodoxy. Furthermore, as hinted to above, there is no reason to suggest that John necessitates Gnosticism - especially if we agree with Roberts that the silence may account for a group of Christians in close communion with Diaspora Jews. (Note to self, look up papyri letter on Christians hiding in Jewish synagogues to avoid sacrificing to the pagan gods.)

So, what has this to do with the creativity of Pagels? Well, it was a long seqway into the issue of Pagels misrepresentation of Irenaeus in order to argue that the Gospel of John was the Gospel of the Gnostics later appropriated into Christianity. On pp. 149-150 of Beyond Belief Pagels states:

Irenaeus complains that Velntinus's disciples were "always quoting the Gospel of John," while suprisingly prominet "fathers of the church," including three of his revered mentors, apparantly were not.

To back this up Pagels cites Against the Heresies 3.11.7. Now, this is probably one of the most famous quotes of Irenaeus so it is dangerous to misrepresent it, but Pagels seems to have no qualms about it. In her opinion it seems, Gnosticism is the truth - and equally as legitimate. And with this in mind, she need not (1) establish the existence of a Gnostic Jesus or (2) existence of primitive Gnostic Christianity (or probably because no matter how hard she tried she could not).

So, what does AH 3.11.7 say? Is Irenaeus really complaining about the heretics using texts while the orthodox do not? Clearly not.

Irenaeus is making a clear points that even the heretics use the Gospel of John. The section Against the Heresies 3.11.7 is an exhortation of the four-fold gospel tradition.

Irenaeus says:

"So firm is the ground upon which these Gospels rest, that the very heretics themselves bear witness to them, and, starting from these [documents], each one of them endeavours to establish his own peculiar doctrine."

Clearly, it is an exhortation of the authoritative nature of the 'canonical' gospels. One would even make a better case that Irenaeus is exagerating the use of the gospels by the heretics. He lists the Ebionites as abusing Matthew; the docetics (?) abusing Mark; Marcion's abuse and redaction of Luke; and the Valentians abusing John. They all do this in an attempt to justify their erroneous and "pecular doctrines" with the true gospels. However, as Irenaeus goes to demonstrate, their exegesis cannot consistently be supported by the text corpus.

So, when one is free to abuse the primary texts so readily on what basis should we trust her case for Gnosticism?

The Myth: The Early Church did not Believe Christ to be Divine

This is one of those myths riding the legacy of The Da Vinci Code. Historically, it is one of little value - however, among many critics of Christianity it is played up as a historically accurate and viable criticism. In actual fact, the earliest witness of Christianity testify to the divinity of Christ whether they be Biblical, pre-scriptural hymns and creeds or non-Christian hostile witness.

One example I like to use occurs in Philippians 2 where Paul makes reference to what scholars believe to be a pre-Philippian creed and hymn.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
⁶Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

This exert of Philippians 2:5-11 is very clear in who Jesus is. It affirms the Apostle Thomas' understanding of Christ as "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).

While responding to this claim I shared an exert by a scholar I am a fan of - Professor Darell L. Bock. Professor Bock, who has a blog here, is highly respected and renowned in his field and currently serves as Research Professor of New Testament Studies and Professor of Spiritual Development and Culture at Dallas Theological Seminary. He authored a New York Times Bestseller which addresses this claim (as presented in the Da Vinci Code) rather well. I have provided an exert from Breaking the Da Vinci Code:

1. The First-Century Evidence from Paul and Early Traditional Materials

Our investigative search takes us not only to the Gospels but also to the apostle Paul, a Jew who in his own words had persecuted Christians and approved of their arrest and execution until he saw the risen Jesus (Gal. 1:11–24). This event produced a personal revolution in his theological view. The writings from Paul date between A.D. 50 and 68, almost three hundred years before Nicea. Paul used traditional materials showing that others shared and confessed his core theological beliefs. No one knew who Constantine was when Paul wrote. Two key classes of texts permit us to see Paul's theology and the theology of others who shared his views: those that involve a confessional statement of the church, and places where he referred to Jesus using language from the Old Testament that pertained to God.

The first class of texts involves confessional statements like 1 Corinthians 8:5–6 (RSV). Paul noted that while those in the world around him worshiped many gods, he and the Christians worshiped one God and one Lord Jesus Christ: "Although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many `gods' and many `lords'—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist."

The title "Lord" often referred to God. In the Greek Bible of the Jews, a work known as the Septuagint, the title "Lord" often substituted for "God." To call Jesus Christ Lord was to refer to His deity, especially in a passage that mentioned other gods of the religious faith of others. According to Paul, Jesus was involved in the Creation as Creator. For a person of Jewish background, that would be the declaration of an activity of God the Creator. Centuries before Nicea, a major Christian leader was affirming the divinity of Jesus not by the mere use of a title, but by a description of activity.

A second class of texts in Paul involves substitution texts like Philippians 2:9–11 (RSV). Without embarrassment, Paul applied to Jesus language that the prophet Isaiah applied to God in the Hebrew Bible. This text reads, "God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." In this passage, Jesus is the object of worship as every knee bows before Him, even as He bears the title of Lord. The language comes from Isaiah 45:23 where the prophet cited God as speaking ("By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return: `To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear"' [RSV] ). Jesus is placed in the same position as God. Jesus receives homage as God does. These are not the only texts where this occurs in Paul. And it occurs in other writings from other authors of what became the New Testament (for example, Ps. 102:25–27 in Heb. 1:1—13). Jesus is not a mere prophet in these texts. He shares equal glory and honor with God.

Darell L. Bock, 'Breaking the Da Vinci Code', p.49

2. The first-Century Evidence from the Rest of the New Testament

Paul was not alone. The gospel of John, probably written in the nineties of the first century, contains an unambiguous statement of Jesus' divinity in its first chapter (RSV):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and all that God was, the Word was [NET; alternatively, and the Word was God, RSV]. (v. 1)

He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him. (vv. 2—3)

And the Word became flesh. (v. 14)

John made it clear in this opening to his gospel that the Word became flesh is Jesus, the actual and full incarnation of deity. Once again, participation in the Creation pointed to deity, just as Paul argued.

Some suggest that what Paul and John affirmed about Jesus stands in contrast to the other three gospels. This would be misleading. Mark, Matthew, and Luke were written, probably in this order, sometime between the sixties and eighties. These dates are debated among scholars, and I use the least conservative range. These are also first-century documents, and they tell the story of Jesus in a more restrained manner than is found in John, by which I mean they are less overt in attributing deity to Jesus. They tell Jesus' story "from the earth up." I document this point in my study of Jesus called Jesus According to Scripture, where I examine every passage on Jesus in Matthew through John. In other words, the first three gospels tell the story like a narrative or even a mystery working up to their final confession of who Jesus is. But make no mistake, all three ultimately declare Jesus to be God.

In these gospels, when Jesus is taken to be crucified, He is put to death for being blasphemous. Jesus claimed that God would indicate that Jesus was Son of man, One who was seated at the right hand of God and rode the clouds (something only deity does in the Bible). This is the same divine honor and glory shared with God that Paul and John referred to in their writings. All of these writings agree that Jesus is divine.

In the background of this Son of man statement were two ideas, both of which suggested a unique status for Jesus. One was the imagery of the Son of man, a human figure in Daniel 7:9–13 who will be given divine authority to judge at the end and will be brought into God's presence. The other was that this figure will sit with God in heaven, not just visit God in heaven. These ideas pointed to a unique vindication of Jesus.

The Jews who heard this utterance believed that Jesus blasphemed, which meant He insulted the unique dignity of God by His claim. To understand the Jewish background of the scene is to appreciate the exalted self-claim that Jesus was making.

The details of this view of Jesus and its background are treated in a full study of two hundred pages I wrote years ago while doing research at the University of Tubingen in Germany. In Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism and the Final Examination of Jesus I consider the Jewish view of who gets to sit with God in heaven and under what circumstances. At the examination before the Jewish leaders Jesus' claims were either a unique and legitimate exaltation or remarks that offended the unique glory of God.

The Gospels recorded the event to make clear their view. In light of Jesus' subsequent resurrection, Jesus is a divine figure worthy to sit in God's presence because He is capable of sharing God's unique glory. We shall come back to this later. For now, understand that these Gospels and Paul's writings, first-century documents, portrayed Jesus as a fully human figure and as One who uniquely bears the full marks and honor of deity. These beliefs were widespread in Christianity almost three full centuries before Nicea.

I am not alone in holding this view and in arguing for it in detail. Larry Hurtado, professor of New Testament at the University of Edinburgh, has produced a recent study that traces the history of this understanding of Jesus through the early centuries, even beyond the period of the earliest texts. It reinforces what is argued here. His book, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (2003), raises questions about aspects of this "new" reading of the history that argues Jesus was not believed to be divine until the fourth century.

Darell L. Bock, 'Breaking the Da Vinci Code', pp. 50-51

I hope these texts are useful.
Please note, if you wish to copy the quotations from above or are interested in the text I exhort you to purchase the book if it is a financial reality. Professor Bock has put work into his books and he is one of the great scholars out there who brings scholarship to the lay person responsibly and honestly.

With this in mind, I plan to do a little Professor Bock promo and adverstise some of his book and their uses.

Some of his notable texts:

• Breaking the Da Vinci Code - Darell L. Bock (as cited in this post)
• The Missing Gospels - Darell L. Bock
  
• Dethroning Jesus - Darell L.Bock and Daniel B. Wallace
• And more...