From Bart Ehrman's The Lost Christianities:
Note that at no point does Ehrman indicate that there was any form of jesusism in the first century.... or the first century BCE. But we know of these variants of jesusism because proto-orthodox writers told us about them while supposedly denouncing them. We have precious little in the way of writings of these other groups and until the Nag Hamadi find was made we had none.
The proto-orthodox position is that after the godboy was nailed up all of these various heresies developed. To be sure, some did. But many reflect, as Ehrman shows above, a strangely diverse concept of xtianity which did not even exist as a concept as Vorlon noted with his "tiny heresy factories" comment. Recall that Pliny the Younger ran into a supposed group of christians ( or chrestians ) in Asia Minor before 112 CE (he died in 112) and wrote that they told him:
I always particularly loved the "as to a god" ( quasi deo ) line. Makes Christ out as something less than a god!
Anyway, there is nothing in there which relates at all to the later xtian horseshit story which the proto-orthodox were later to develop. Instead, they seem much like all the other Mystery Cults which also had some sort of sacred meal as one of their prime tenets.
We do not know if these other groups bothered to write anything down. The whole point of Mystery Cults was that the information was passed on from Master to Initiate orally. The proto-orthodox were particularly upset with Marcion who did concoct of canon of 11 items, "the gospel of the lord" which turns out to be "Luke" and someone added a couple of chapters on at the beginning, and ten so-called epistles of this paul fucker. That did not stop the proto-orthodox from recognizing a useful idea though so Marcion's canon was re-written to conform to their particular bullshit story and then they claimed that Marcion had truncated their earlier documents..... documents of which we have no the slightest record.
The Church History is an elaborate fiction and catholicks, eastern orthodox and most protestants have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
Quote:The Varieties of Ancient Christianity
The wide diversity of early Christianity may be seen above all in the theological beliefs embraced by people who understood themselves to be followers of Jesus. In the second and third centuries there were, of course, Christians who believed in one God. But there were others who insisted that there were two. Some said there were thirty. Others claimed there were 365.
In the second and third centuries there were Christians who believed that God had created the world. But others believed that this world had been created by a subordinate, ignorant divinity. (Why else would the world be filled with such misery and hardship?) Yet other Christians thought it was worse than that, that this world was a cosmic mistake created by a malevolent divinity as a place of imprisonment, to trap humans and subject them to pain and suffering.
In the second and third centuries there were Christians who believed that the Jewish Scripture (the Christian “Old Testament”) was inspired by the one true God. Others believed it was inspired by the God of the Jews, who was not the one true God. Others believed it was inspired by an evil deity. Others believed it was not inspired.
In the second and third centuries there were Christians who believed that Jesus was both divine and human, God and man. There were other Christians who argued that he was completely divine and not human at all. (For them, divinity and humanity were incommensurate entities: God can no more be a man than a man can be a rock.) There were others who insisted that Jesus was a full flesh-and-blood human, adopted by God to be his son but not himself divine. There were yet other Christians who claimed that Jesus Christ was two things: a full flesh-and-blood human, Jesus, and a fully divine being, Christ, who had temporarily inhabited Jesus’ body during his ministry and left him prior to his death, inspiring his teachings and miracles but avoiding the suffering in its aftermath.
In the second and third centuries there were Christians who believed that Jesus’ death brought about the salvation of the world. There were other Christians who thought that Jesus’ death had nothing to do with the salvation of the world. There were yet other Christians who said that Jesus never died. How could some of these views even be considered Christian? Or to put the question differently, how could people who considered themselves Christian hold such views? Why did they not consult their Scriptures to see that there were not 365 gods, or that the true God had created the world, or that Jesus had died? Why didn’t they just read the New Testament? It is because there was no New Testament. To be sure, the books that were eventually collected into the New Testament had been written by the second century. But they had not yet been gathered into a widely recognized and authoritative canon of Scripture.1 And there were other books written as well, with equally impressive pedigrees—other Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypses claiming to be written by the earthly apostles of Jesus.
Note that at no point does Ehrman indicate that there was any form of jesusism in the first century.... or the first century BCE. But we know of these variants of jesusism because proto-orthodox writers told us about them while supposedly denouncing them. We have precious little in the way of writings of these other groups and until the Nag Hamadi find was made we had none.
The proto-orthodox position is that after the godboy was nailed up all of these various heresies developed. To be sure, some did. But many reflect, as Ehrman shows above, a strangely diverse concept of xtianity which did not even exist as a concept as Vorlon noted with his "tiny heresy factories" comment. Recall that Pliny the Younger ran into a supposed group of christians ( or chrestians ) in Asia Minor before 112 CE (he died in 112) and wrote that they told him:
Quote:They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food--but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.
I always particularly loved the "as to a god" ( quasi deo ) line. Makes Christ out as something less than a god!
Anyway, there is nothing in there which relates at all to the later xtian horseshit story which the proto-orthodox were later to develop. Instead, they seem much like all the other Mystery Cults which also had some sort of sacred meal as one of their prime tenets.
We do not know if these other groups bothered to write anything down. The whole point of Mystery Cults was that the information was passed on from Master to Initiate orally. The proto-orthodox were particularly upset with Marcion who did concoct of canon of 11 items, "the gospel of the lord" which turns out to be "Luke" and someone added a couple of chapters on at the beginning, and ten so-called epistles of this paul fucker. That did not stop the proto-orthodox from recognizing a useful idea though so Marcion's canon was re-written to conform to their particular bullshit story and then they claimed that Marcion had truncated their earlier documents..... documents of which we have no the slightest record.
The Church History is an elaborate fiction and catholicks, eastern orthodox and most protestants have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
