23AR28-21

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AR 28:21 - A dubious re-writing of early Christian history

In this issue:

CHURCH HISTORY - more than one version of the "early" church?

 + Craig Evans' ancient manuscript documentary now available at no cost

NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS - defining "cult" and "brainwashing" out of existence

Apologia Report 28:21 (1,618)
June 14, 2023

CHURCH HISTORY
"Were Later Versions of Christianity Radically Different than Earlier Ones?" -- one of several related topics in this update of a Feb '22 Gospel Coalition essay by Michael J. Kruger (Professor, New Testament and Early Christianity; President, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, NC). 

   Kruger begins by mentioning several books on this subject released since 2011 observing: "I think scholars are realizing afresh something that we have always known, namely that the validity of the later (and fuller) version of Christianity is dependent, at least somewhat, upon whether its core features can be traced back to the earlier stages of Christianity."

   Kruger sees this contrast presented most recently in After Jesus Before Christianity: A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements, <www.bit.ly/3OXvyGZ> authored by Erin Vearncombe, Brandon Scott, and Hal Taussig - all writing on behalf of the Westar Institute (effectively the umbrella organization for the well-known Jesus Seminar). ...

   "The authors put it bluntly, 'In the first two centuries, what we think of as "Christianity" did not exist.'

   "Of course, anyone familiar with 20th century scholarship on early Christianity will quickly recognize that this overall thesis is not new. [German theologian] Walter Bauer's 1934 volume, Heresy and Orthodoxy in Earliest Christianity, essentially made these same claims about radical diversity in the earliest centuries, and how 'orthodoxy' was merely the result of the stabilization of the church in the 4th/5th century. Indeed, much of modern critical scholarship on early Christianity has been built on the Bauer paradigm (in some form or another).

   "Now, while Bauer's thesis has been roundly (and some would say decisively) critiqued, he did get some things right. For one, it is fair to say that these earliest centuries of the Christian faith had a lot more theological-doctrinal diversity than we typically recognize.

   "And the same is true of the present volume. At a number of points, it rightly recognizes that these early centuries were quite different than the later centuries, and we need to understand those differences better. At other points, however, this volume seems committed to pushing a radical discontinuity between the early and later versions of Christianity - a radical discontinuity that I don't think the evidence can sustain."

   A number of chapters "focus upon family, identity, and gender. In particular, the authors highlight how women played a more prominent role in the ministry of the church in these earliest centuries. Special attention is payed to the apocryphal Gospel of Mary where Mary is 'granted special, superior authority' even over the apostles. ...

   "Not surprisingly, a core tenet of the book - and fitting with the influence of Bauer - is that the whole concept of heresy is a 'creation of later centuries' designed to prop up the church's own power and squash dissenters. ...

   "Again, there's not space for a full-scale rebuttal of such claims (I have written about it extensively in The Heresy of Orthodoxy). <www.bit.ly/45ZqY0Z> But it should be noted that much of the book's argumentation centers on the term 'heresy' itself (hairesis), and how it wasn't used in the New Testament negatively.

   "This approach, however, confuses word and concept. Sure, the word 'heresy' might not have been used that way in the New Testament writings, but the concept is surely there. The New Testament authors attest to many types of false and unacceptable teachings....

   "So, why don't the authors regard such passages as evidence for real distinctions between heresy and orthodoxy in the earliest centuries? Well, because many of these passages come from Paul. And Paul, in their minds, was not that significant. Indeed, chapter fifteen is devoted to explaining why Paul was not that important to the early Christian movement.

   "Of course, if Paul is not so important, then this undermines some of the authors' earlier arguments. ...

   "No volume in the spirit of Walter Bauer would be complete without making this final point. One of the major differences between the earliest phases of the church and the later phases of the church is that 'no New Testament existed in the first two centuries.'"

   Kruger concludes that "time and again, the authors seem to push well beyond what the evidence can bear. ... The volume claimed that it had the potential to 'rewrite history.'" Well, in a sense it has done that. It has rewritten the history of early Christianity. The question, however, is whether that new version is more accurate history than the one we had before." <www.bit.ly/3qu2pZL>

"Fragments of Truth Now Free to Watch Online" by Peter Gurry (Director, Text & Canon Institute, Phoenix Seminary) -- announces that Craig Evans' 2019 video documentary is now available on YouTube. <www.bit.ly/3WZQqzu>

   Visiting that link you'll have access to related videos, including "the late great Larry Hurtado dispensing uncommon wisdom on [manuscript] P52. The documentary has some fantastic footage of early NT papyri and (most of) the interviews are with genuine experts on the subject."

   Gurry's original Fragments review (Apr 10 '18) adds that the 115-minute film is complemented by "about 30 minutes of Craig Evans <www.bit.ly/3oQgH6H> and others."

  "The basic point of the movie is to show that the text of the New Testament is reliable and that the variants that do exist pose no threat to Christian confidence in the New Testament. ...

  "Evans takes us ... to locations across Europe that hold some of our most famous Greek New Testament manuscripts in places like Cambridge, Dublin, Vatican City, and Oxford. One nice feature about this is that they interview the curators at most of these stops. I like this because curators often get overlooked. But not here.

   "The scholars interviewed are another positive of the film especially because, with a few exceptions, most of them actually work in NT textual criticism. For example, we get Larry Hurtado talking about manuscripts as artifacts, Andrew Smith talking about papyrus construction, and Pete Williams giving a little on the relevance of the versions...." Gurry finds that the personalities make for "a good lineup," noting that "Evans also serves as tour guide (think Mary Beard style) and the rest of the narration is filled in by John Rhys-Davies, better known as the amazing Gimli in Lord of the Rings."

   "The thing I was most happy about was the production quality. ... The effects are well executed and the cinematography is very good. The shots of P66 (as seen in the trailer) really stand out. ...

   "If I have a disappointment about the film, it is that the apologetic, which I largely agree with, is overcooked a bit. The basic message is that variants are really nothing to worry about. At one point, Evans quotes Bruce Metzger as saying that out of 20,000 lines of New Testament text, only about 40 are places where there is 'any doubt at all' about what the original is. I don't know where Metzger claims this, but that's exaggerated." Gurry includes plenty of his own technical discussion.

   "Part of the issue is that we never hear the view the film is critiquing from those who actually hold it."

   Gurry <www.bit.ly/3oQgH6H> concludes that "the manuscripts steal the show - as they should. They are, in the end, the best reason for seeing this film. I think viewers will catch some of the thrill of what it is like to see and study them in person." Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, May 3 '23 <www.bit.ly/43t750I>

 ---

NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
"Why 'cults' (and 'brainwashing') do not exist" by Italian sociologist, attorney, and activist Massimo Introvigne (founder/director, Center for Studies on New Religions [CESNUR]) -- the subtitle explains: "Labels have no accepted scientific meaning and are used as tools of discrimination." The paper was originally delivered in Buenos Aires on March 22 at a panel on “Religious Freedom: A Right Under Threat in the World” that was sponsored, in part, by the Unification Church-affiliated Universal Peace Federation (UPF) and the Interreligious Association for Peace and Development (IAPD). <www.upf.org/founders>

   Introvigne complains that "today, in many countries of the world, minority religions and spiritual movements are still discriminated against by calling them 'cults' (or by using the equivalent words 'secta' in Spanish or 'Sekte' in German and similar, which should be translated into English as 'cults,' not as 'sects').

   "But what is a 'cult'? I am a sociologist of religions, and I am aware that a century ago 'cult' had a clear and legitimate sociological meaning.

   "According to the founding fathers of my science, Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, a 'cult' ... is a young religion in which most of the members were not born but converted. If successful after a few generations, a 'cult' became a religion, with a majority of members born of parents of the same faith. ...

   "Around World War II - but with a precedent in Italian language that goes back to the very father of criminology Cesare Lombroso - specialists in another science, criminology, began to use 'cult' with a different meaning. They began to call a 'cult' a religious group that commits serious crimes or can be expected to commit serious crimes in the future. ...

   "That is why, at the end of the last century, the vast majority of religious scholars stopped using 'cult' and replaced it with the less ambiguous term 'new religious movements.' Of course, these scholars do not think that all religious movements are good, kind, and bring flowers. Some commit serious crimes. ...

   "As it is normally presented by the anti-cult movements, 'brainwashing' does not exist. It is only a pseudoscientific notion and a tool to arbitrarily discriminate against unpopular religious and spiritual minorities. ...

   "The so-called criteria for recognizing a 'cult' and distinguishing it from a religion are, at best, inapplicable, because many of the same characteristics can be found within the mainline religions. At worst, they are an intellectual fraud that justifies repression and discrimination." 

   Introvigne concludes: "... more than 40 years of experience in this field ... persuaded me that getting rid of the useless and dangerous concepts of 'cult' and 'brainwashing' is the best way to protect both religious freedom and the possibility of successfully prosecuting groups guilty of real crimes such as murder, sexual abuse, or theft, which should not be confused with the imaginary crimes of being a 'cult' or using 'mental manipulation.'" MercatorNet, Apr 3 '23, <www.bit.ly/3NbuJZI>

   We suspect that Stephen A. Kent (Sociology, University of Alberta) and other noted sociologists of new religions would strongly disagree. See, for example, Kent's article "Brainwashing in Scientology's Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF)." <www.bit.ly/43RAEsq>

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