Professor of Early Christian History here, ask me anything!

[irenaeuslyons]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I read that there are excerpts of the Gospel of St. Matthew in Aramaic.
Good night for now!

St. Jerome sent translated excerpts of it in a letter to i think Pope Damasus at that the time. Good night!

 

[jack63]

Thanks for the thread…a few more questions…

1. What led you to initially have an interest in early Christian history?
2. How has the understanding of early Christian history affected your faith?
   …FYI…I won’t judge. My faith journey has been rather circuitous
3. How do you like being a professor?
   …I thought about being one for the longest time (in a very different field). I dunno…the profs I have come to know well say the academic world is not all it is cracked up to be, and it has kept getting more difficult in the last decade.

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

I don’t know what you are asking. Whether or not Q was a written a source is a legitimate line of historical inquiry. Luke is explicit that he used written sources to compile his gospel, so I have no idea why this would be problematic.

I love the idea of a Q source. I am studying early church history and the martyrs, it is what fascinates me.
All from reading that tome ‘the Source’ when I was a kid.

 

[Neithan]

Many of the none/atheist/irreligious crowd think we’re getting the wool pulled over our eyes somehow. They are eager to accept as established knowledge whatever academic treatise contradicts orthodox scholarship. A skeptic should, for consistency and to avoid hypocrisy, set aside double standards by applying the same measure of skepticism to every author. We are dealing with scholarly opinions, not historical proofs.

 

[po18guy]

I bear in mind always that physical evidence is a double-edged sword, carrying the potential both to lead toward as well as away from the ultimate truth. Why not take some philosophy or theology?

 

[phoage]

I have been reading Church history for some time and have come across several references to a Counsel of Jamnia where Jewish leaders supposedly decided on a formal canon ofJewish scripture after the destruction of the Temple.

I have also heard that this counsel never happened.

Can you suggest any sources that provide evidence either way.

Thank you,
Patrick
AMDG

 

[annem]

I have been reading Church history for some time and have come across several references to a Counsel of Jamnia where Jewish leaders supposedly decided on a formal canon ofJewish scripture after the destruction of the Temple.

I have also heard that this counsel never happened.

One scholar suggested it as an idea, pretty soon everyone was talking about it as if it had happened. Subsequent investigation indicated it never happened.

 

[MichaelP3]

IN Catholicism - Luke and all Scriptures are Solid as a Rock -

If you don’t accept that - Prove it…

You can’t give a person a position and demand them to prove it wrong " or else they are wrong".

I honestly never understood the way history is handled on this Forum. I commend this thread and hope it opens some eyes. ACTUAL history is and always will be a very strange thing to many.

 

[annem]

billsherman can also assure you that I have not recommended any books by people who hate Christianity. They may have different interpretations of it than you, but they don’t hate it.

But Crossan is an atheist who has spent his entire adult life trying to undermine Christianity. Many people will have seen Crossan on the History Channel or elsewhere. He has a lovely Irish lilt, and they always place him in front of a church. where he says, “As a Christian” and then states a very anti Christian belief. He’s not…exactly lying. What he means is, since I believe Jesus as an idiot apocalyptic prophet who wanted to overthrow Rome but of course has no idea he was God…you get the idea.

Book after book attacking Christianity. An avowed atheist.

Erhman the agnostic is worse. How many people do you think the ear stud wearing Erhman has caused to lose their faith? One million, or a mere 100,000?

Erhman, especially in his early books, and most especially in his books aimed at a general audience, uses distortions, hiding of basic data, and gross exaggerations.

I first heard about his “Misquoting Jesus” when someone told me Erhman had proven the Bible was all a lie because it had been changed by the church in significant ways. There are 4He is a popu00,000 variants in the Bible! The doctrinal basis of the Trinity and the deity of Jesus are undermined!

He attempts to prove these claims by finding evidence of very late corruptions - from the 400s, for example - and then insisting these are proof the same thing was going on in the year 70 AD. He calls corruptions or variations in spelling, most of them apparently unintentional, and minor even to the most pettifogging among us, lies and blames them on deceitful priests. He portrays Gnostic texts that differ from the NT as proof we don’t know what the original NT text was. And of course he does this while very carefully not mentioning the date of the Gnostic text.

I do not find Erhman a scholar at all, and I have read nearly every book he wrote.

If Erhman doesn’t hate Christiantiy, why the heck has he spent so many decades trying to destroy it? l

 

[gazelam]

Feel free to ask anything about that period, and I’ll do my best to give you an honest historical answer.

Does historical evidence point to an Early Christian belief in Real Presence/transubstantiation?

Along those lines, what do you make of Edwin Hatch’s comment in this matter?

“it is among the Gnostics that there appears for the first time an attempt to realize the change of the elements to the material body and blood of Christ.” ( Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church, p. 308. )

Thanks in advance!

 

[PatK63]

Can you recommend some great video on this subject for our men’s study group?

 

[billsherman]

Is there any historical proof or solid refutation that the canon of christian scripture, more spacifically the NT, was not determined by the church at the early 4th-5th century councils

It’s not until the mid to late second century that you get anything resembling a canon appearing. And these earliest attempts were all localized - that is, different churches would accept different documents as part of their canon.

The late third century is when a canon that looks like the modern one begins to appear, and the late fourth century is when it is officially codified. The exact point of the codification is in dispute. While it was certainly done by 382 at the Council of Rome, there is pretty good evidence that this council only ratified a preexisting accepted canon.

Other than council documents is there other historical records showing what the christian scriptures were?

Several letters exist between early bishops in which they were discussing canonical texts and such. The process of defining the canon took a long time.

Peace!!!

And the same to you!

 

[annem]

Does historical evidence point to an Early Christian belief in Real Presence/transubstantiation?

Along those lines, what do you make of Edwin Hatch’s comment in this matter?

“ it is among the Gnostics that there appears for the first time an attempt to realize the change of the elements to the material body and blood of Christ. ” ( Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church, p. 308. )

Alas, Hatch appears not to have done any research whatsoever. So:
1 Cor So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
St Paul thought the Eucharist was the body and blood of Jesus.
Next about 115 AD Ignatius “I have no taste for the food that perishes nor for the pleasures of this life. I want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ , who was the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed.

 

[billsherman]

Bill - great thread, thanks for doing this.

You’re welcome! The pleasure is mine.

As a historian, what do you think of the common claim that the behavior of the very early Church is evidence of the Resurrection (or at least evidence of something extraordinary having occurred)? The argument is generally along the lines that the fact that the Apostles all kept up the faith, and all (or mostly) died for the faith is an indication that they must have believed in the Resurrection, which would be some evidence of its occurrence.

Good question. And one that comes up a lot. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that, historically speaking, I don’t accept it as indirect evidence for the Resurrection.

The reason why, is that assuming that the Apostles were all, or mostly, martyred (which is already an assumption, we have no historical evidence of their fates for the most part), that doesn’t make them inherently different than others who have died for beliefs that no one would accept. Take religious cults, for example. From the Branch Davidians, to Heaven’s Gate, to Jonestown, there have been countless people who have died, or even committed suicide, because they believe so strongly that David Koresh is the Second Coming, or a UFO is following a comet, or whatever. They may have had extreme belief, but they were willing to die for them. Yet no one takes their beliefs seriously.

Please note: I am NOT comparing early Christians with suicide cultists, I’m comparing the argument that since the Apostles died for their faith that can be used as evidence for the Resurrection.

There are, of course, historians who disagree with me, and accept the argument you raise. They are the minority however.

Taking one step back, given the paucity of historical evidence of the fates of the Apostles, would a historian ever take the behavior of third parties as evidence of the happening of some otherwise unsubstantiated event?

Probably not. There are just too many other possible explanations in most cases. Human behavior can be, and frequently is, irrational.

 

[billsherman]

If they made up the associations, why didn’t they take advantage of that freedom and just say the gospels were penned by the greatest of the apostles to add to its authority? Instead we get middle management figures like Luke and Mark.

An entirely fair point. Many historians do accept the traditional identifications. Those who don’t usually look at textual evidence as well. They look at vocabulary and syntax, and things of that nature to try and determine where and when they were written. If you’re particularly interested in this, I can’t really do it justice in a forum post, but can point you to some excellent work. I would suggest starting with James Dunn. His survey of early Christianity covers the gospel writers (he agrees with you, as well!) nicely, and you can dive far deeper if you wish by following his notes.

If anyone might have known the authorship of each gospel, it was people like him.

Maybe. But then again, the gospels were initially geographically isolated from each other. John, which was written sometime around 100 CE, does not appear to have read Mark, Matthew, or Luke.

 

[billsherman]

It makes sense that there were bits copied and changed by cross checking info with other sources. But if you think Mark was first, I can understand why you come to that conclusion about non-existent sources. There was no other gospel to cross check against, so it must have been an amalgam of different now missing sources. However, I don’t believe Mark came first. I think Mark had access to Hebrew Matthew and possibly Greek Matthew. I suspect the lost Hebrew Matthew Gospel is the missing link that would straighten out a lot of the existing confusion if it was ever to be found.

There are still some historians who accept Matthewian priority, but they are in the distinct minority. I, like most, think that Markian priority fits the evidence best.

 

[billsherman]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I read that there are excerpts of the Gospel of St. Matthew in Aramaic.

No there aren’t. You may be conflating this with Jerome’s (and others) claims that Matthew wrote in Hebrew. There are a number of claims from early Christians that as many as three “Hebrew Gospels” existed, with at least one of these having been written by Matthew.

There do exist quotes from them, but it is unknown what exactly they were. Were they really just one gospel with different names, or were they actually three gospels? Were they full gospels, or proto-gospels on which the canonical gospels are based? Were they originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or some other language? Were they dependent (written after) on the canonical gospels? Unfortunately, until we find one of them, we are unlikely to be able to answer any of those questions.

What we can say for certain, however, is that the copy of Matthew we have now was written originally in Greek. It is not a translation from Hebrew.

 

[billsherman]

What led you to initially have an interest in early Christian history?

I started in history at a young age, and moved around a lot. I became interested in the historical Jesus when a professor in college read the passage in Josephus about Jesus. The rest, as they say, is history.

How has the understanding of early Christian history affected your faith?

I’ve come to recognize that Jesus’ message and the message of early Christianity is sometimes rather different than a lot of adherents make it out to be. Jesus, for example, didn’t care at all about politics. He cared deeply about helping people first, and flat out ignoring realpolitik issues. He also cared very much about helping people now, in this world.

There is no doubt whatsoever that my work has pushed me to care deeply about migrants and racial minorities in the US. Is that the essence of Christianity? I think so, but I don’t want to get preachy here. Just like with history, there are other perspectives.

How do you like being a professor?
…I thought about being one for the longest time (in a very different field).

Don’t. I love being a professor, but the jobs are very hard to get, very low paid, and thankless. You could spend a decade in graduate school to become the best at whatever it is you do in the world, and end up making $40,000 a year in your first job when you’re 35. That’s if you can get a job at all, higher education in the US has been contracting for twenty years.

the profs I have come to know well say the academic world is not all it is cracked up to be, and it has kept getting more difficult in the last decade.

They are wise people. American popular support for higher education is at the lowest point since they have been tracking it. One of the great American historians, Richard Hofstadter, wrote about the tragedy of the American education system. In 1966!

 

[billsherman]

I love the idea of a Q source. I am studying early church history and the martyrs, it is what fascinates me.

Have you read B. H. Streeter yet? If not, you should. Also, you might find John Kloppenborg fun. Q is definitely a fun intellectual puzzle to work through.

 

[billsherman]

I bear in mind always that physical evidence is a double-edged sword, carrying the potential both to lead toward as well as away from the ultimate truth. Why not take some philosophy or theology?

I’m not sure if this is directed to me. If it is, I can say that I don’t think I’ve ever used physical evidence as a source (historians pretty much never do, that’s the domain of archaeology). I’ve also taken many philosophy and theology courses. They just didn’t work for me as well. Perfectly good fields, I have great respect for them, but they aren’t for me.