The Bauer Thesis Examined

The Bauer Thesis Examined
Author: Thomas Arthur Robinson
Publisher: Lewiston, N.Y. : E. Mellen Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 1988
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

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This study challenges the adequacy of the reconstruction of primitive Christianity advanced by Walter Bauer in Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity - the theory that so-called heretical movements were early, widespread, and strong. The author does this by citing the lack of data extensive enough to warrant such conclusions.

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Contexts

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Contexts
Author: Paul A Hartog
Publisher: James Clarke & Company
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2015-08-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 022790494X

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Eighty years ago, Walter Bauer promulgated a bold and provocative thesis about early Christianity. He argued that many forms of Christianity started the race, but one competitor pushed aside the others, until this powerful 'orthodox' version won theday. The victors rewrote history, marginalizing all other perspectives and silencing their voices, even though the alternatives possessed equal right to the title of normative Christianity. Bauer's influence still casts a long shadow on early Christian scholarship. Were heretical movements the original forms of Christianity? Did the heretics outnumber the orthodox? Did orthodox heresiologists accurately portray their opponents? And more fundamentally, how can one make any objective distinction between 'heresy' and 'orthodoxy'? Is such labeling merely the product of socially situated power? Did numerous, valid forms of Christianity exist without any validating norms of Christianity? This collection of essays, each written by a relevant authority, tackles such questions with scholarly acumen and careful attention to historical, cultural-geographical, and socio-rhetorical detail. Although recognizing the importance of Bauer's critical insights, innovative methodologies, and fruitful suggestions, the contributors expose numerous claims of the Bauer thesis (in both original and recent manifestations) that fall short of the historical evidence.

The Heresy of Orthodoxy (Foreword by I. Howard Marshall)

The Heresy of Orthodoxy (Foreword by I. Howard Marshall)
Author: Andreas J. Köstenberger
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2010-06-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433521792

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Beginning with Walter Bauer in 1934, the denial of clear orthodoxy in early Christianity has shaped and largely defined modern New Testament criticism, recently given new life through the work of spokesmen like Bart Ehrman. Spreading from academia into mainstream media, the suggestion that diversity of doctrine in the early church led to many competing orthodoxies is indicative of today's postmodern relativism. Authors Köstenberger and Kruger engage Ehrman and others in this polemic against a dogged adherence to popular ideals of diversity. Köstenberger and Kruger's accessible and careful scholarship not only counters the "Bauer Thesis" using its own terms, but also engages overlooked evidence from the New Testament. Their conclusions are drawn from analysis of the evidence of unity in the New Testament, the formation and closing of the canon, and the methodology and integrity of the recording and distribution of religious texts within the early church.

The Heresy of Orthodoxy

The Heresy of Orthodoxy
Author: Andreas J. Köstenberger
Publisher: Crossway Books
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2010
Genre: Bible
ISBN: 9781433518133

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Beginning with Walter Bauer in 1934, the denial of clear orthodoxy in early Christianity has shaped and largely defined modern New Testament criticism, recently given new life through the work of spokesmen like Bart Ehrman. Spreading from academia into mainstream media, the suggestion that diversity of doctrine in the early church led to many competing orthodoxies is indicative of today's postmodern relativism. K'ostenberger and Kruger's accessible and careful scholarship not only counters the "Bauer Thesis" using its own terms, but also engages overlooked evidence from the New Testament. Their conclusions are drawn from analysis of the evidence of unity in the New Testament, the formation and closing of the canon, and the methodology and integrity of the recording and distribution of religious texts within the early church. --from publisher description

Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke

Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke
Author: John Wenham
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2020-07-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 172527664X

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This groundbreaking study poses a solution to what one scholar has called "one of the most difficult research problems in the history of ideas"—the Synoptic problem. The phenomenon and mystery of three similar but different Synoptic Gospels has for centuries challenged some of the best minds of academia and the church. How can we explain the differences and similarities among Matthew, Mark and Luke? Which Gospel was written first? To what extent did the Evangelists depend on oral tradition, written sources or each other? John Wenham courageously opposes the reigning two-document theory-that Mark was the first Gospel, with Matthew and Luke independently using Mark and a lost source of sayings of Jesus labeled Q. Through careful argument and analysis, he seeks to defend an alternative theory that satisfactorily accounts for what he argues is some degree of structural dependence but nevertheless a surprising degree of verbal independence among the Synoptics. This brave new revisioning of the writing of the Synoptics redates Matthew, Mark and Luke prior to A.D. 55. Insightful and provocative, Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke offers a fresh look at a hard problem as well as an interesting perspective on the inner workings of the early church. It is a book to be reckoned with—and sure to stir up scholarly controversy.

A Vision of the Days: Studies in Early Jewish History and Historiography

A Vision of the Days: Studies in Early Jewish History and Historiography
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 796
Release: 2024-08-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004685561

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This collection of essays treats many aspects of ancient Jewish history and modern historiography in this area, with an emphasis on the history and literature of the Second Temple period and especially on the writings of Josephus. It is dedicated to Daniel R. Schwarz, and reflects his central academic interests. Additional essays deal with historical and ideological aspects of classical rabbinic literature, with archeological finds and with perceptions of the Jews and Judaism on the part of non-Jews in the Second Temple period and later.

Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Author: Steven Fraade
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2018-11-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9047410734

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The studies in this volume examine the intersection of the Dead Sea Scrolls with early rabbinic literature. Methodological attention is paid to questions of the nature of sectarian and rabbinic law and narrative, and how they may elucidate one another.

The Apostolic Fathers

The Apostolic Fathers
Author: Michael W. Holmes
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 832
Release: 2007-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 080103468X

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A contemporary version of important early Christian texts that are not included in the New Testament. The translation, Greek texts, introduction, notes, and bibliographies are freshly revised.

Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines

Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines
Author: Nicole Kelley
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2006
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9783161490361

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The Pseudo-Clementines are best known for preserving early Jewish Christian traditions, but have not been appreciated as a resource for understanding the struggles over identity and orthodoxy among fourth-century Christians, Jews, and pagans. Using the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, Nicole Kelley analyzes the rhetorical strategies employed by the Recognitions . These strategies discredit the knowledge of philosophers and astrologers, and establish Peter and Clement as the exclusive stewards of prophetic knowledge, which has been handed down to them by Jesus. This analysis reveals that the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions is not a jumbled collection of earlier source materials, as previous interpreters have thought, but a coherent narrative concerned primarily with epistemological issues. The author understands the Recognitions as a reflection of complex rivalries between several types of Christian and non-Christian groups such as that found in fourth-century Antioch or Edessa.

Border Lines

Border Lines
Author: Daniel Boyarin
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2010-11-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0812203844

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The historical separation between Judaism and Christianity is often figured as a clearly defined break of a single entity into two separate religions. Following this model, there would have been one religion known as Judaism before the birth of Christ, which then took on a hybrid identity. Even before its subsequent division, certain beliefs and practices of this composite would have been identifiable as Christian or Jewish.In Border Lines, however, Daniel Boyarin makes a striking case for a very different way of thinking about the historical development that is the partition of Judaeo-Christianity. There were no characteristics or features that could be described as uniquely Jewish or Christian in late antiquity, Boyarin argues. Rather, Jesus-following Jews and Jews who did not follow Jesus lived on a cultural map in which beliefs, such as that in a second divine being, and practices, such as keeping kosher or maintaining the Sabbath, were widely and variably distributed. The ultimate distinctions between Judaism and Christianity were imposed from above by "border-makers," heresiologists anxious to construct a discrete identity for Christianity. By defining some beliefs and practices as Christian and others as Jewish or heretical, they moved ideas, behaviors, and people to one side or another of an artificial border—and, Boyarin significantly contends, invented the very notion of religion.