Okay - so correctly sensing a trap our xtian shitheads are avoiding walking down the trail.
The significance of Rev. Ogden's detective work - confirmed by Candida Moss, btw, in The Myth of Persecution - derives from the epistle known as 1 Clement.
In One Clement it states right at the beginning:
For reasons which seem to have no basis in reality xtian "scholars" have traditionally ( I hate that fucking word ) ascribed First Clement to shortly after the reign of Domitian. This attribution is based on the idea that Domitian did wholesale persecution of xtians an act, as Ogden says, for which there is no evidence at all.
There are lots of traditions about Clement of Rome. So many in fact that he seems to be a made up character just like the rest of it. The gist of his writing - again to Corinth...always fucking Corinth...is that he is telling them to quit fucking with their bishops and get with the program. But...this reflects a much later reality for two reasons. First, the earliest xtian traditions are for a quick return of the godboy with his heavenly "kingdom" so you get a lot of this "give your possessions away" shit and don't get married and this world does not matter. When the godboy did not show up people did what all apocalyptic cults did and started changing the ground rules. Ehrman points out that a church hierarchy began to emerge as a concept when it became apparent that this thing was going to have to go on for a while. All of a sudden money was no longer on the shit list and women were told to get married and STFU. Second, the doctrine of the primacy of the bishop of Rome went through a long period of development - culminating in the Great Schism of 1054 but it seems to have begun in the late 2d century with Irenaeus...again.
Nonetheless, xtians seem perfectly willing to overlook the doctrinal problems with First Clement and cling to the dubious dating to Domitian's bloodbath because First Clement gives them references to "Paul" and also the deaths of Peter and Paul. Xtians desperately want first century references to this happy horseshit and are perfectly willing to suspend reality to get it.
But, and this is the importance of Ogden's work, if there is no persecution of Domitian then the dating of First Clement goes out the fucking window and we are left...yet again...with much later shit which being passed off by later writers.
On such a foundation of sand is xtianity constructed.
The significance of Rev. Ogden's detective work - confirmed by Candida Moss, btw, in The Myth of Persecution - derives from the epistle known as 1 Clement.
In One Clement it states right at the beginning:
Quote:1Clem 1:1
By reason of the sudden and repeated calamities and reverses which
are befalling us, brethren, we consider that we have been somewhat tardy in giving heed to the matters of dispute that have arisen among
you,
For reasons which seem to have no basis in reality xtian "scholars" have traditionally ( I hate that fucking word ) ascribed First Clement to shortly after the reign of Domitian. This attribution is based on the idea that Domitian did wholesale persecution of xtians an act, as Ogden says, for which there is no evidence at all.
There are lots of traditions about Clement of Rome. So many in fact that he seems to be a made up character just like the rest of it. The gist of his writing - again to Corinth...always fucking Corinth...is that he is telling them to quit fucking with their bishops and get with the program. But...this reflects a much later reality for two reasons. First, the earliest xtian traditions are for a quick return of the godboy with his heavenly "kingdom" so you get a lot of this "give your possessions away" shit and don't get married and this world does not matter. When the godboy did not show up people did what all apocalyptic cults did and started changing the ground rules. Ehrman points out that a church hierarchy began to emerge as a concept when it became apparent that this thing was going to have to go on for a while. All of a sudden money was no longer on the shit list and women were told to get married and STFU. Second, the doctrine of the primacy of the bishop of Rome went through a long period of development - culminating in the Great Schism of 1054 but it seems to have begun in the late 2d century with Irenaeus...again.
Nonetheless, xtians seem perfectly willing to overlook the doctrinal problems with First Clement and cling to the dubious dating to Domitian's bloodbath because First Clement gives them references to "Paul" and also the deaths of Peter and Paul. Xtians desperately want first century references to this happy horseshit and are perfectly willing to suspend reality to get it.
But, and this is the importance of Ogden's work, if there is no persecution of Domitian then the dating of First Clement goes out the fucking window and we are left...yet again...with much later shit which being passed off by later writers.
On such a foundation of sand is xtianity constructed.
