After a remarkable digression into Steady State/Big Bang theory, and cosmological mathematical modelling, we reviewed the possibilities that a) Ignatius and his guard traveled to Rome by boat with several stops (b) that he traveled by land, and (c) a combination of the above.

Philadelphia seems to be neither on the land route not the sea route, but apparently Ignatius met members of the Philadelphian church at Troas.

Ignatius told the Philadelphians to ignore Jewish law

We compared this with -- :

Paul says Jewish law helps you tell right from wrong, but has no saving power

James the Just, head of Jerusalem church was famous for his devotion to the law

Marcion, the famous second century heretic, denounced the "Jewish god" as evil, togther with the law.

　

Oddly, Ignatius asks the Philadephians to send a delegate to Antioch to congratulate them on the lifting of persecution. This seemed a long way to go for a courtesy visit, and we wondered whether some kind of inter-church conference was in prospect.

　

We looked at an excerpt from a somewhat suspect document -- the Martyrium of Ignatius. In what purports to be an transcript of Ignatius' interview with the Emperor Trajan in Antioch, Ignatius offends Trajan by referring to his gods as "demons" is condemned to death, and sent off to face the lions in the Coliseum in Rome. At least one commentator assumes that Ignatius made most of the journey by sea, and this might explain why time was found on the journey for his many meetings with church officials, in spite of the unfriendly nature of his guards. However, the existence of the imperial edict would be difficult to contravene, even when news arrived from Antioch that persecution had ceased. The only place where effective action could be taken on Ignatius' behalf would be in Rome itself, and it appears from his letter that this is exactly what happened, as his friends rallied to his defence. Ignatius, however, is determined on a course of martyrdom, and begs his friends not to defend him.

Catholics quote Ignatius' Letter to Rome as the earliest document from a non-Roman claiming overall authority for the Roman church; however we found it difficult to draw this from the text, either from the Greek, or from a Catholic-approved translation.

Tralles is a small town on the highway into Ephesus. Confusingly, it has had several names -- in Roman times it was renamed Caesarea, and under Turkish government became Aydin, which is its current name.

It is not clear that Ignatius actually visited the church of Tralles, but he did meet their Bishop, Polybius, in Smyrna. Polybius seems to have told him about unorthodox ideas that were current in Tralles.

The first is mentioned in Chapter 5, and seems to imply some kind of Gnosticism, including esoteric information about angels and heavenly principalities. Ignatius rather charmingly says that he is too young in the faith to have any knowledge of such ideas, but counsels against pursuing them.

He is more forceful in countering a form of Docetism, which believed that Jesus was pure spirit, and any observation of his body, and particularly of his suffering and death, was illusory. Ignatius drily observes that if Jesus only "seemed to exist" then perhaps the Docetists only "seemed to exist" and perhaps he and his suffering were only illusions.........

As an aside, why was Ignatius still travelling to Rome for execution, when persecution in Syria appeared to have ceased? However, those in the group with first-hand experience of the ways of bureaucracies had little difficulty with the thought that once the mechanism of sending him to Rome was under way, it would be difficult -- and perhaps nobody's responsibility -- to reverse.

　

Magnesia is a small town a few miles from Ephesus.

It has given its name to the magical rocks that could either attract or repel each other -- "magnets".

The river has also given its name to the loops formed in the lower course of a river -- the River Meander.

A problem at Magnesia was that the bishop was young and inexperienced; some members of the church had taken to ignoring him and holding meetings independently. As might be expected, this was denounced by Ignatius, who, he thinks, should see the bishop as one standing in the place of God.

An odd slip of the pen has Jesus being _born_ under the governemnt of Pontius Pilate; even taking the view that the Lukan nativity story implies his birth in 6 CE, the governor then would be Coponius, some thirty years before Pilate.

Verse 9:1 is sometimes quoted as the first evidence for Christians observing Sunday rather than the Sabbath, but this turns on a point of translation (www.cogwriter.com/ignatius.htm)

We started 2010 well back on our schedule. We had not completed the quiz on December 13, the December 20 class was canceled by snow, and Dec 27 had never been scheduled.

A review of the final quiz on Clement's letter to Corinth reminded us of Clement's emphasis on obedience in the early church. Clement's letter (though the second, possibly forged, letter) has always been popular with the church, and is contained in many collections of early writings, though not in the definitive Canon of the New Testament prepared by the Council of Carthage in 397. We noted Clement, like Paul, described secular powers as having derivbed from God; we wondered whether someone writing after the state-run persecutions would write this way, and discussed whether this implied that the letter is earlier than usually accepted, or whether the persecutions had less impact than we assume. Clement's reference to his messengers having grown old in the faith may possibly suggest a later date.

We opened the series of Ignatius' letters with his letter to Ephesus. His letters appear to have been written during his journey from Antioch to Rome, under armed guard, to face execution in the Colesseum. It is striking in these letters how much he seems to be looking forward to his execution and to gaining the status of martyr.

Ignatius' imagery is often unexpected; in this letter he compares the Holy Spirit to a rope, and the Eucharist as medicine -- not current images. He compares the ideal state of the church to that of a choir.

The letter to Ephesus contains the evocative account of the nativity in Chapter 51. We reviewed the accounts of the nativity in Matthew and Luke, and discussed their differences, together with the non-evangelical view that Matthew was inventing, or at least selecting, stories to fit existing prophecies -- the ex eventu approach. With its emphasis on the cosmological significance of the incarnation, this ection is also reminiscent of the kenotic passage in Philippians 2.

　

　

　

We spent some time looking at the use that Clement makes of the Old Testament. His repertoire seems wider than Paul's, though he shares Paul's propensity for merging different excerpts together to make a new quotation! His (unattributed) quotes from the gospels are interesting, and we toyed with the idea that his excerpts may predate the redaction of the gospels themselves.

Chapter 59 starts with some of his usual threats, but segues into what may be an early Christian hymn.

We`were struck by Clement's description of God as the "prime cause of all animals", and compared it with Robinson's use of Tillich's phrase "the ground of our being".

Clement mentions the messengers who are carrying the letter to Corinth. They have patrician names, and it has been suggested that they were members of the imperial court, and Clement himself may have been an office-holder.

We reviewed the evidence for Clement having actual authority over the Corinthian church (Catholics, of course, accept him as the fourth Pope). We does use very direct language, but early in the letter says that the Corinthians had wishes to "consult" him. Although he enjoins them to obey the presbyters, he makes no such demand that they should obey him.

 

We looked at the contrast with our usual view that church officers should be replaced from to time with Clement's position that "presbyters" were appointed for life, and were owed total obedience by church members. Clement characterises opposition to the presbyters as "sedition" and quotes violent threats from the Wisdom literature in Proverbs. Catholics quote this material as establishing the Doctrine of Apostolic Succession.

We glanced at Clement's use of the doctrines of the Elect.

We were impressed by the amount of literature that Clement apparently had at his disposal -- I Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, and Romans. One commentator said that Clement appeared to have access to all NT scriptural sources other than the Johannine tradition.

We puzzled over his use of "King Sacrifice" material, and wondered about his sources; John suggested that Clement might know Euripedes' play "Alcestis".

　

Clement refers to sacrifices being made by the high priest in Jerusalem. This is unequivocally in the present tense; yet it is known that temple sacrifices ceased, once and for all, when the Roman occupied the Temple in 70CE. On the face of it, then it would appear that I Clement was written before 70 CE, some 25 years earlier than the usual date assumed for Clement's installation as Bishop of Rome.

We discussed some possibilities:

That there is a scribal error, and that the original is in a different tense

That Clement is quoting from some earlier document.

That sacrifices were made after 70 AD.

Dr. Isobel Combes suspects that we are overstating the issue:

 

.... as I understand it, the conventional view dates Clement to around 95 AD. It may be simpler than you think -- he is still one of those who sees Christianity merely as a continuation of Judaism and Christians as "true Israelites" still following in the traditions of priests and synagogues. It will have taken some time, if ever, for it to sink in for some people that it was really all over.

If the Houses of Parliament and St Paul's were razed to the ground and invading fundamentalists took over London, would we all shrug and say "ah well, the end of democracy and the Church of England" .... or would we still for years afterwards live in hope that the situation would eventually be sorted out and we would go back to the way things were?

Or, living elsewhere, occasionally even forget that it had happened and be caught out occasionally mentioning it as if it were still there?

We reviewed the known history of the letter known as I Clement, and discussed why it has never been thought be pseudonymous.

We enjoyed Clement's description of the Phoenix cycle, and wondered where he got his information.

We puzzled over Clement's references to the resurrection and his insistence on this as a future event. Apparently, there was a section of the Christian Church that believed that the general resurrection had already occured. Colossians 2:12 can be read this way, but Paul appears to oppose that view in Romans 6:4-5 .

Clement quotes Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 as "When the Most High divided the nations....... he fixed the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God." NRSV translates this as "he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods" -- which suggests a quixotic image -- "I'll take Israel, you, Baal, take Syria; Artemis, you can have Greece; Odin, take Germany........"

Chapters 12-23 start with a discussion of humility citing Christ, the prophets, and David as examples. They segue into a plea for peace, citing the order and harmony of the universe.

We discussed the power relationship between the churches of Rome and Corinth, coming down between the view of the primacy of Rome and total independence, thinking more in terms of the older, more experienced church giving advice. Clement appears to have considerable resources at his disposal, as evinced by his fluent use of the Old Testament and quotations from Jesus, not quite in their canonical form. We posited the existence of a large "library" of texts at Rome.

Clement to Corinth 1-12

There is argument as to whether Clement was a Pope, with authority over other churches, or just a leader of a particular church, asked to give an opinion on a issue at another.

He makes fluent use of Old and New Testaments, although the canon of scripture was not be established for a few hundred years.

There are interesting references to Paul and Peter, including a reference to Paul as having reached "the limits of the West" Since there is no reference to this in Acts, it may mean that Paul survived his first trial in Rome, and went on to visit Spain.

Clement's letter refers, apparently, to the expulsion of presbyters from the church at Corinth. It is unclear what the point was at issue. Clement takes the view that churchmembers should be loyal to their presbyters, even "approaching them on bended knee". Whatever view one takes of the extent of the authority vested in Clement, it does seem that the church is well on it way to having an authoritative clergy.

(We also looked at CS Lewis' poem "A Cliche Escapes From Its Cage" in reference to last week's item in the Washington Post about paganism.)

Laodicea was a prosperous city, partly because of its successful trade in black wool, and partly from its geographical location, being on the intersection of two great highways, one from Smyrna and Ephesus, heading East through Syria to Persia, and the other running from the coast at Attalia to Pergamum. The location is not a natural one, and, in particular, the supply of water always involved problems. There was the hot spa water from Hieropolis, with its high sulfur content, and cold clear water from Colossae. Both were supplied to Laodicea, and one suspects that there was domestic cross-contamination, vividly described by John as water one would "spit out of his mouth". John uses this image to accuse Laodicea of being "neither hot nor cold".

Laodicea is the seventh and last of the churches addressed directly in Revelation.

Revelation then becomes apocalyptic, and we looked at the twelve ways of interpreting such literature listed by Wikipedia.

We shall continue with early Christian letters by reading correspondance from Clement of Rome to the church in Corinth.

Contrary to popular belief, “Philadelphia” does not exactly mean “city of brotherly love”.  It was founded by Eumenes, king of Pergamum , after his brother Attalus, whose fidelity to his brother had given him the title of “Philadelphos” --  the lover of his brother.   Philadelphia overlooks a fertile plain, and was usually prosperous, but was vulnerable to earthquakes.  After the great earthquake of 17 AD, imperial funds were forthcoming to help with the repairs.  Philadelphia renamed itself “New Caesarea” in honor of the emperor Tiberius. 

Philadelphia continued to fear earthquake, and the letter to Philadelphia reflects its longing for stability and security.  The “one who overcomes” will become a pillar in the temple, and live there forever.  This image conflicts with the later statement that the New Jerusalem would have no temple, since it would be occupied by God.

Philadelphia is offered an “open door” to a world controlled by God.  The following letter – to Laodicea -- uses the opposite image, with Jesus standing outside a closed door.

The writer again warns against the “synagogue of Satan” of those “who pretend to be Jews but are not”.  This may reflect some internal division among the Jews, such as between those who supported the temple in Jerusalem and those who preferred the temple at Heliopolis.  Alternatively, the ones who “pretend to be Jews but are not” may be the Gentile Christians who were persuaded into full Jewish practices by the Judaisers of Acts 15:1.  A similar argument is put forward by Pharisaic believers in Jerusalem in Acts 15:5  New Christians who become circumcised are denounced by Paul in Galatians 5, who says that “if you are circumcised then Christ is of no use to you at all”

 

 

 

Sardis was a frontier city on the edge of the Persian Empire, at the end of the Royal Road from Persepolis.   It was a prosperous city – gold was said to come down the river as “golden sand”.  In peaceful times, its position gave it all the benefits of a “railhead” collecting goods for transshipment to Persia, and breaking down incoming shipments for distribution.

 

Its most famous king was King Croesus, who gave his name to the phrase “as rich  as Croesus”.  On learning that a Persian army was on its way to attack, he took advice from the oracle at Delphi, which told him that if he went to war, he would “destroy a great kingdom”.  However, it turned out that the kingdom he would destroy was his own.  Pictures of him pouring oil onto his own funeral pyre became iconic images, some on Greek vases which still survive.

 

By New Testament times, Sardis was again a flourishing commercial city.  John remarks that the Christians there “have a  name of being alive, but you are dead”.  They are commanded to “wake up” in view of the imminence of the Second Coming, which will come unexpectedly “like a thief in the night”.

 

As at some of the other Asian churches, John was worried about the Christians’ contamination with pagan practices, but “there are still a few persons in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes.”  The “conquerors” are promised white clothes, and that their names will not be removed from the book of life.

Thyatira was a flourishing commercial center, noted for its dyeing, metalwork, and woolen industry.

St. Paul met “Lydia”, from Thyatira, in Philippi.  Some commentators have found it odd that somebody who came from Thyatira, Lydia, should be called “Lydia” and suggest that Luke got his names confused.  Paul may have visited Thyatira on his third missionary journey, though this is conjecture.  Lydia is described as a “dealer in purple cloth” (Thyatira Purple is mentioned in the Iliad).  Her hospitality to Paul and Silas reflects her independence and financial status.

Thyatira appeared to have encountered libertine tendancies, perhaps centered on a leader called “Jezebel”, though possibly the name is merely polemical.  Her followers were accused of sexual misconduct and eating food offered to idols.  The first may reflect the need of business people to follow the customs of trade guilds, particularly at their celebrations; faced with the problem of participating in pagan dinners, Paul himself has a more casual approach “eat what is set before you and ask no questions” (I Cor:8), a position that would not appeal to John, with his apocalyptic polarized views.

We discussed the timing of early “heresies”.  Tom pointed out that in early churches,  common practice was more important that common belief.  We noted that Prof Ehrmann attributes the eventual dominance of the “catholic” version of Christianity to its emphasis on having a  Creed, Canon, and Clergy.

 

 

 

 

Pergamum was a great city, at one time capital of Roman Asia, until the title was taken by Ephesus.  Its shrine to Ascepelius was  famous for its healing, and the library second only to the one at Alexandria.  The Temple to Zeus was excavated at the end of the nineteenth century, and exported to Berlin, where the Pergamum Museum is named after it.

The rather cryptic letter to Pergamum contained in Revelation refers to “the seat of Satan”.  This may refer to the Temple of Zeus, or to the Roman Praesidium.

 

The Pergamum church was influenced by the mysterious Nicolaitans, whom we saw in the letter to Ephesus, and by those who had been taught by “Balaam”.  Balaam is a semi-legendary figure, whose name was given to all kinds of heresy and error.  The quasi-historical reference to Balaam in Numbers 22-24 is, however, somewhat sympathetic.  Here he appears as a freelance prophet, who, when hired to curse the Israelites, finds he can only pronounce words of blessing.

 

 

 

 

REVELATION  2:8-15

Smyrna (modern Izmir) was destroyed in about 500 BC and rebuilt, on a lower site in 70 BC.  The old acropolis overlooked the new city, and was called the “crown of Smyrna”.

In New Testament times, Smyrna was a major and prosperous city.  The Christian church was well established, but subject to conflict with the Jewish community and the Graeco-Roman authorities.  The church father Polycarp was martyred there.

John commends their faith, but forecasts persecution, though this will not last for a long time.

Many commentators* seem to read the reference to “the synagogue of Satan” in a way directly opposite to its surface meaning.  John refers to “those who pretend to be Jews and are not”.  It is perhaps unreasonable to jump to the conclusion that John is in fact talking about Jews.  Perhaps he is writing from the point of view of a conservative Jewish Christian, who is unconvinced that Gentiles can be Christians since they are not Jews.  Certainly “the nations” are invariably portrayed as evil in the rest of the Book.  On this reading, the “pretenders” would be Gentiles who adopted Jewish practices on becoming Christians, a practice that Paul opposed, in the face of opposition from “people sent by James”.  The “synagogue of Satan” would actually be part of the Gentile Christian community………

 

·          For example:  http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?1518&cuTopic_topicID=815&cuItem_itemID=28248  

REVELATION 1 and 2:1-7

The last book of the New Testament and of the Bible is the Book of Revelation.  The word “revelation “ is a translation of the Greek word Apocalypse.  Apocalyptic literature forms a class of writings that were popular in the First Century.  Revelation is the only wholly apocalyptic book in the Bible, though Daniel, Ezekiel, and even the gospels contain apocalyptic elements.  The apocryphal books 2 Esdras and the Shepherd oF Hermas are apocalyptic.  

Apocryphal books are presented as an explanation of the Last Things” to the writer.  They are highly symbolic, but this may not mean that they attempted to conceal secrets, but they used a commonly accepted “vocabulary” that is, however, difficult for the modern reader.

We looked as some cartoons, drawn and published for political purposes.  We had no difficulty with cartoons drawn in the 1940’s, but those a hundred years earlier were opaque.

Apocryphal books are often pseudepigraphical – examples are the apocalypses of Moses, Abraham, and Enoch .  Traditionally Revelation is ascribed to John the Evangelist, who is also identified as the writer of the Gospel of John and the Letters of John.  However, it was pointed out early on that the Greek of the Gospel and the Letters is impeccable, whereas the Greek of Revelation is very strange. 

Ireneaus dated Revelation to the later years of the emperor Domitian, but the book may well be earlier.  We worked through the prophecy of the temple contained in chapter 11, which seems to indicate that the book was written while the Jerusalem temple was under siege, though the author predicts that the  siege will be lifted “after 42 months” and after “the Gentiles’ had penetrated only to the outer courts.  Since in fact the Roman legions conquered the center of the temple in 70 AD, this suggests that the book is earlier than that.

An interesting puzzle is the prophecy of the “eight kings” in chapter  17:9-11.  Comparing this to a list of actual Roman emperors suggest that the book was written during the Year of the Four Emperors, when the author expects “one of the seven” to return “although dead”, which suggests a reference to the abortive rebellion under “Nero Revividus”.

Revelation contains short letters to the churches of the Roman province of Asia.  We looked briefly at the first – to the city of Ephesus.  Three members of our group have been to Ephesus, and told us of its great buildings including one of the Wonders of World – the Artemisium, or “Temple of Diana of the Ephesians”

Paul spent over two years at Ephesus, and it was a center of Christian development for several hundred years.  “John” however, upbraids the Ephesians for having lost “the love you had at first.”   However, the Ephesian Christians are congratulated on resisting heretics, and even those who “claim to be apostles and are not.”

Some have suggested that the prophecy about the “tree of life” is a subtle reference to the sacred date-tree of Aphrodite in Ephesus.

The Epistle of Jude claims to be written by "Jude the Brother of James". Many take this is a reference to the apostle Jude, brother of James, and thus of Jesus. Others assume that the letter is pseudepigraphic, others point out that there may have been more than one pair of brothers with those names. The author does not explicitly claim to be an apostle; indeed the apostles seem to be referred to as figures of the past.

We looked at an interesting fragment in which Eusebius quotes from Hegesippus about the persecution of Christians by the Empereor Domitian. Two grandsons of Jude are caught up in the dragnet, but under interrogation prove to be ignorant peasants who pose little threat to Rome. So umimpressed is the emperor that the progrom is called off, and prisoners released. This seems to suppport the theory of the apostles as "unlettered laymen", as described by the High Priest in Acts.

Jude seems to contain much "boilerplate" material common to the Second Letter of Peter, attacking rival church members but giving tantalisingly little concrete information about them. The writer quotes from the Assumption of Moses, a contemporary document, and it is frustrating that no copies of this document have survived. He also quoted from the Book of Enoch, treating both these works as authoritative, though today the Book of Enoch is only recognised by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

The letter concludes with a stunning doxology, which almost amounts to a definitive definition of Christianity.

II and III John form part of the collection known as the "Catholic Epistles" though each has a named addressee.

II John is addressed to "The elect lady", which may be a nickname for a particular church, or may refer to a particular person. Indeed, it had been argued the "Eklekta Kuria" may actually be the name of a person.

The context appears to be one in which congregations met in members' homes and were visited by missionaries from outside the city. John warns against untrustworthy visitors, and says that they should not be given (official?) hospitality.

III John is even shorter, and is mainly taken up with a quarrel between the writer and "Diotrophes", who has been blocking correspondence and refusing hospitality visitors, including the writer's friend, Demetrius.

III John is not mentioned in early church literature, and Knox considers that it may have been considered of no great importance until a canon of scripture was being defined, and III John was produced from some church's archives.

The Catholic Epistles are those which appear to be addressed to no particular church, but were written as general guides for Christian behavior.  I John is the fourth of the Catholic Epistles.

As far back as the early church fathers, there has been discussion of the probable authorship of the three Epistles of John.  Stylistically they are similar to each other, and to the Gospel of John, but not to the Book of Revelation, which is written in a very primitive Greek.    Suggestions as to the author include the apostle – brother of James and one of the sons of Zebedee  -- and the elusive John the Elder who may have lived in Ephesus up to around 140 AD.

We looked at the extraordinary story of  the Comma Johanneum, contained in the King James version of I John 5: 7-8.  This passage, which would be the only one in scripture explicitly describing the Trinity, is found in no ancient Greek text, but found its way into the Latin Vulgate some time in the tenth century.  When Erasmus omitted it from his pioneering  publication of the Greek text, he met with many protests that he was tampering with scripture.  The story goes that he offered to replace the section if one Greek document could be produced that included the quoted passage.  Apparently one was then produced (invented?) to order.  All modern translations omit the section, as does the latest version of the Vulgate itself.

Much of I John seems occupied with current heresies – some that denied that Jesus has come in the flesh (Docetism?  Adoptionism) and the libertine heresies such as Antinomianism.  However, I John is memorable for its beautiful poetry – I John 4:16 (and for that matter I John 3:16) has a lasting impact.

Commentators differ as to whether the apostle Peter authored II Peter, and to whether I Peter and II Peter have the same author. However, II Peter explicitly states that Peter was the author, and the different styles of the amensuenses (Sylvanus, the case of II Peter), may account for the other differences. II Peter is mainly concerned with the problem of Christians who deliberately sin, which may be an early form of Antinomianism. Peter sees the end of the world as coming with fire, which may have inspired some Gnostic works.

Hebrew did fall out of spoken use by the time the Jews were exiled into Babylon. However existing prayers and of course the Torah-Prophets-Writings itself was studied in the original Hebrew. And with the exception of Babylonian writings, Jewish scholars almost always wrote their works in Hebrew.

More recently (200 years ago) some prayers were translated and scholarly writings written in German, to appeal to those who were more assimilated into German society. Also at some point Yiddish (a combination of Hebrew and German) became a language of use among Jews in Europe. And at that time a major effort was made to revive Hebrew as an actual spoken language, with a couple of newspapers and study groups popping up in parts of Europe.

In the meantime, Middle Eastern Jews were speaking Arabic. My guess is there were a handful Middle Eastern Jews in Israel (or whatever it was called then) when the Turks were in power, so they were speaking Arabic (and praying and studying in Hebrew). When the European Jews returned to Israel - which started in the 1800's - they brought in the languages of their home countries (Russian & Polish much more than German), Yiddish, and a revived spoken Hebrew.

I don't think Latin was used by Jews very much at any given time - the Septuagint was a translation at the request (or command) of the authorities at that time.

We reviewed in detail the information about Peter that is contained in the New Testament. we also discussed the different views held by commentators as the the pseudepigraphic nature of I Peter and II Peter, and the discussion as to whether they were written by the same person. We completed our reading of I Peter, and ran through the quiz questions. We read a few verses from II Peter before adjourning until next week.

Our information about James is very sparse in the Gospels, but is augmented in Acts, the Pauline Epistles, and even in Josephus (if he is "James the Just")

In contrast, there are several stories about Peter in the Gospels, and in Acts, but they cease abruptly after his escape from a Herodian prison. He appears one more time after that.

Traditionally, I Peter has always been considered to have been written by the Peter of the gospels, but recently critics have queried the fact that the Greek is good, whereas all the disciples are described as "unlettered laymen" in Acts. The frequent references to persecution and to the "dispersion" are difficult to date if we accept Eusebius' account that Peter died at about the same time as Paul -- around 65 CE.

Peter does, however, acknowledge that Silvanus helped with the writing. Perhaps, if Silvanus produced a literate draft, Peter would be disinclined to tamper with it in detail.

We looked at the dates of the Domitian and Neronian persecutions, both of which are later that the presumed date of Peter's death. One usually overlooked possibility is the attack on Christians by Agrippa. This may well have led to a mass exodus from Judaea by Christians, and would allow for an early dating of I Peter, which might then even be the earliest Christian document.

The New Testament mentions four people named James ("Jacob" in the Greek):

1. James the son of Zebedee ("James the Great")

An early disciple of Jesus (Matthew 4:21), he was present at the Transfiguration and the Raising of Jairus' daughter. He and his brother were given the nickname "Boanerges", which translates as "Sons of Thunder". The meaning of this is obscure, but may denote a tendancy to violent action. . Jesus predicted the death of James (Mark 10:39), and this occured within a few years when the grandson of Herod the Great, Agrippa I, took control of the whole of Israel. Agrippa may have seen the Christians as a threat to his power; he had James executed, and then planned to execute Peter. If this James was the writer of the epistle, it must have been written before 42 CE, and thus be unrelated to Paul's letters on "Justification by Faith", such as Romans, which were written some ten years later.

 

2. James the Brother of Jesus ("James the Just"). James the Brother of Jesus was initially opposed to Jesus' ministry (Mark 3:31 ), but was converted and became head of the church in Jerusalem. Paul cites him as one of the first to receive a resurrection appearance ( I Corinthians 15:7). He is identified with the "James the brother of Christ" mentioned by Josephus as having been executed by the high priest, Ananus, during the interregnum after the unexpected death of the Roman governor, Festus in 61 CE. This move was apparently highly unpopular, and led to the deposition of Ananus. Eusebius quotes Hegessipus at length, recounting events from the trial of James (including the cryptic question "What is the Gate of Jesus?") and an account of James being thrown down the steps of the temple and then bludgeoned to death. "James the Just" had a reputation for extreme piety, his knees calloused by much prayer in the temple. At the arraignment of Paul before the Jerusalem church, on a charge of having taught Jews to reject the Law, it is James who decides the action to be taken.

3. James the Son of Alphaeus. Little is known about this James, He is usually identified with "James the Less" (Mark 15:40)

4. James of Judas. A translation problem inhibits our understanding as to whether this James was a brother or a father of Judas Iscariot.

 

A puzzle for any of these possible authors is the high standard of the Greek, not to be expected from a group of men whom the priests considered to functionally illiterate (Acts 4:13 ), though Katrhryn suggested that the letter was written in Aramaic and then translated by another.

To many commentators it seems odd that James, if he were the brother of Jesus, should never appeal to his brother for authority, or as an example. For that matter he does not quote any incident from the Jesus' ministry, though he may have been opposed to it at the time. Some Christian preachers have tried to show the Christian influence on James' writing, but others have shown that all references are Talmudic, and claim that the Epistle may be a Jewish document with two small Christian modifications. The ease with which the letter may be read in Jewish or Christian terms may show how close early Christian thinking was to Jewish thought.

The writer seems to assume a violent congregation, with adultery and murder common occurences.

 

 

 

 

 

Ehrmann asks, given the large number of versions of early Christianity, why did the one we know today become dominant?  He suggests three crucial factors -- the three C's.

 

This unified front involved (a) developing a rigor­ous administrative hierarchy that protected and conveyed the truth of the religion (eventuating, for example, in the papacy), (b) insisting that all true Christians profess a set body of doctrines pro­moted by these leaders (the Christian creeds), and (c) appealing to a set of authoritative books of Scripture as bearers of these inspired doctrinal truths (the "New" Testament; see Chapter 1). Or to put the matter in its simplest and most allitera­tive terms, the proto-orthodox won these conflicts by insisting on the validity of the clergy, the creed, and the canon.

 

We had another look at Hebrews 10-13.  Chapter 10 continued the complicated metaphor of Christ as priest, and again ascribed passages in the Old Testament as sayings of Jesus, reinforcing the suspicion that a collection of sayings was being used, rather than scripture itself.  Chapter 11 is known among English evangelicals as the “Westminster Abbey of the Bible”, with its great collection of vignettes of OT characters, rather like the Irish lists of saints.  The reference at the end to saints “sawn in two” is puzzling; there is a statement in the “Ascension of Moses” that Isaiah was so treated, but this apocryphal work is thought to be later than the epistle, if not medieval.

 

The imagery of the final chapters reaches great heights  -- as we have noted before, more like a speech or a sermon than a letter, though there are some personal references at the end.  Did someone send out a transcript of a sermon, and add a few greetings?

We did a review of the Pauline epistles, and produced a chart of one-liner summaries.  This chart is in the "One-Liners" category.

We read chapters 9 and 10 of Hebrews, leaving 11-13 to the following week.

The writer continues his dense comparison of the duties of a high priest in the Temple with the role of Jesus as Redeemer.

The writer describes the contents of the Ark of The Covenant in the Holy of Holies; references in the Old Testament differ as to what these contents were, butit is possible that they changed over time.  The Ark is shown being carried away by Roman soldiers on the celebratory Arch of Titus in Rome; it current whereabouts are unknown, though one church in Ethiopia claimsto hold it.  It has been the subject of much revisionist history, from "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" to "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

Statements which are ascribed to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit are quotations from the Septuagint.  This supports that the idea that New Testament writers used a "bookof sayings" that did not always give the provenance of the quotations.

Chapters 5 thru 8 of Hebrews do a complicated piece of bible study based on Exodus 28 and Psalm 50. The writer theorises that Jesus followed the pattern of the mysterious figure Melchizedek. Without beginning or end, Jesus takes the place of the high priest who officiated in the Jerusalem Temple in a new temple in the heavens. The theology is complicated and somewhat non-Pauline. Would Paul have talked of Jesus "learning obedience" or entering the Holy of Holies?

Hebrews 1-4. The "Epistle to the Hebrews" prsents a puzzle, because no early manuscript contains the name of the author, or of the adressee. An early Bishop of Rome, Clement, thought that Paul must have written it in Hebrew, and got Luke to translate it into Greek. Tertullian, writing atthe very beginning of the Third Century, thought that it was written by Barnabas. Martin Luther put forward the idea that it was written by Apollos. The English scholar and archeologist, Dr. Ramsey, prosed that it was written by Philip The German theologian Hernack, made the startling suggestion that it was written by Priscilla, which might make it easier to explain why the author's name was removed from early documents. This argument is developed in the Wikipedia reference. Some have suggested, on the basis of its elegant, well-thought out Greek,, that it is not a letter at all, but a transcript of an early sermon, which would make it the only complete sermon to have survived from the early church. The record of Stephen's partial sermon in Acts is rather similar. When was it written The author spends much time arguing that temple ritual had been superseded. However, the destruction of the temple is not mentioned, suggesting that the letter was written before 70 AD. Clement quotes from it in around 90 AD To whom was it written? The only direct hint is the mention of "those who are from Italy" at the end of the letter, perhaps indicating that the letter was written to Rome. The heavy emphasis on arguments that Jesus outranks all other authorities, inlcuding angels, reminds many of the arguments against Gnostics (or proto-Gnostics) in Colossians, suggesting that it was written for a similar purpose. its focus on Jews suggests that it was written to a Jewish community. One suggestion has been that it is addressed to a community of Jewish ex-priests, (mentioned in Acts 6) under pressure to return to the temple. Other suggestions have been Jewish Christians, disappointed by the non-arrival of the Second Coming, tempted to return to orthodox Judaism. Other Jewish Christians may need instruction on the universalist aspect of Christianity, as against the nationalistic Judaism of c. 60 AD.   more »