The Heresy of Orthodoxy: When Was the Earliest Complete List of New Testament Books?
For the last few weeks, I have been posting a series of videos where Andreas Köstenberger and I discuss our response to Walter Bauer’s thesis on heresy and orthodoxy in early Christianity.
These discussions are based on our book, The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity (Crossway, 2010).
You can find the prior three installments here, here, and here.
In this next video below, Andreas and I discuss the earliest complete list of New Testament books. For years, this was thought to be Athanasius’ Festal Letter of 367.
However, I have recently argued that a often-overlooked list … Continue reading...
The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How and When was the New Testament Canon Put Together?
For the last few weeks, I have been posting a series of videos where Andreas Köstenberger and I discuss our response to Walter Bauer’s thesis on heresy and orthodoxy in early Christianity.
These discussions are based on our book, The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity (Crossway, 2010).
The first week was an overview of Bauer and why we wrote the book (see here), and the second week was on the role of diversity in the NT books themselves (see here).
In this video below, we discuss an area very central to the Bauer thesis, namely the development … Continue reading...
The Heresy of Orthodoxy: What Do the NT Books Tell Us About Early Christian Diversity?
Last week I began a new blog series (see first post here) addressing the theme of unity and diversity in early Christianity, particularly as it pertains to the well-known work of Walter Bauer.
Essentially, Bauer argued there was no such thing “heresy” or “orthodoxy” during this time period. These ideas, he argues, are simply artificial constructs of the later theological victors.
This series is exploring Bauer’s thesis through a number of video conversations between myself and Andreas Köstenberger. These videos reflect on our book that critiques Bauer: The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity (Crossway, 2010).… Continue reading...
The Heresy of Orthodoxy: Who is Walter Bauer and Why Write a Book About Him?
In 1934, the German scholar Walter Bauer wrote a landmark work entitled Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. The problem was that no one yet knew it was a landmark work. The Germans (and the world) had other things on their mind during this phase of European history.
But, in 1971 the book was translated into English. And with all the new found (largely American) fascination with apocryphal Gospels like the Gospel of Thomas, the English translation proved to be well timed.
Bauer’s core thesis was that early Christianity was profoundly diverse in terms of its theological commitments. Various Christian groups believed all sorts of contradictory things about … Continue reading...
Where Are All the Heretical Bishops in the Second Century?
A number of my recent posts (e.g., see here) have been dealing with Walter Bauer’s 1934 book Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity which insists that Christianity was wildly diverse in the earliest centuries and that the heretics outnumbered the orthodox. It was not until the 3rd and 4th centuries, it is argued, that the orthodox began to turn the tide.
But let’s test this theory by asking a simple question: who were the bishops in second-century Christianity? If heresy was as widespread as orthodoxy, we should expect to find a number of bishops that are openly Marcionite, Ebionite, Gnostic, and beyond.
The problem for Bauer’s thesis is that … Continue reading...