As I may have mentioned, I'm working my way through N.T. Wright's magnum opus, volume 1: "The New Testament and the People of God". Its a big book and I have to say, for the most part has felt like an extended introduction to the next book ("Jesus and the victory of God") rather than a book in its own right. Perhaps all of the background is necessary, but I'm sure NTW could have been a bit less wordy at some points.I'm nearly at the end, and its just getting interesting. At least, interesting in relation to my current doubts. These are about the origins of Christianity: how did it get started? how accurate is the 'history' presented in the new testament? what did the early Christians actually believe? how did they look at Jesus (and how does that differ from how we see him now)? and so on.
Fundamentally, I'm interested in the question posed (and apparently answered in the negative) by Richard Carrier's book "Not the impossible faith" (which I haven't read yet, but its on the list) - Did the church need the resurrection of Jesus in order to start? If the church could have got going and growing by 'natural' processes, then is it justifiable to hold to the Christian faith today? Is it justifiable to believe the New Testament writings? That's where I'm wrestling at the moment.
Anyway, NTW presents a chain of events in the early church which are attested by non-canonical (and thus historically reliable?) sources from the 1st & 2nd centuries. These 'fixed points' are:
- AD155 - Martyrdom of Polycarp
- AD110-117(ish) - Letters of Ignatius and his martyrdom
- AD110-114(ish) - Pliny's persecutions of Christians
- AD90(ish) - Domitian's investigations of Jesus's relatives
- AD64 - Nero's persecutions of Christians after the fire of Rome
- AD62 - Death of James in Jerusalem
- AD49 - Expulsion of Jews in Rome due to Christian disturbances
Unfortunately for us, the earliest five of those fixed points, and the information they provide only really tells us:
- There was a group of 'Christians' established in a specific place at a specific time. The earliest reliable fixed point is the death of James in 62AD, as the AD49 incident was related to the followers of 'Chrestus' which may or may not have anything to do with 'Christ'.
- There were clashes of some variety between the Romans and these Christians, resulting in sporadic persecutions and occasional executions.
- They were accused of anti-social behaviour and were generally despised, but the history accounts don't really tell us why. They seem to be mostly lower class and uneducated (as far as the Romans are concerned).
So in attempting to piece together a picture of what the early Christians believed, the earliest evidence with a fixed date is the writings of Ignatius, and that is some 80 years after the death of Christ.
Of course, most people agree that the majority of writings in the New Testament were written between about 50AD and 100AD. But I've read and heard (via podcasts) a lot recently, questioning the early date of the canonical writings and, possibly more importantly, various evidences of how many of the canonical writings were edited (changed? combined? added to? had bits removed?) in the early and mid 2nd century.
Even if Paul wrote some of the letters in the 50s AD, if these have been tampered with, how can we get back to what was originally written? I'm sorry, but I'm not able to naively accept that the versions we have are the originals because 'the church wouldn't have changed them' or some such assumption. If there's evidence of tampering, its likely that tampering has occurred...
Anyway, Ignatius. He wrote some letters. As far as I know, these don't have much in the way of signs of tampering, so if he refers or alludes to New Testament writings, then it would imply that at least these bits of the NT date back to the 1st century, and gives us some evidence for early dates of (at least) the original 'strata' of the NT writings.
So I'm off to trawl through the epistles of Ignatius and I'll comment on what I find out in due course.
9 comments:
Why so skeptical about the Pauline corpus?
I've read (and listened to) a lot recently which discusses various redactions and editorial seams and the like in Paul. If it looks like someone has edited it, how can we be sure what is original and what is editorial?
Ricky,
Granted, the Pauline corpus is not a collection of first drafts as Paul clearly subjected his own letters to a process of editing and revision. But so what? The mere fact that they were subject to a process of editing and revision doesn't prove that they were corrupted by someone outside Paul's authority later on.
In my opinion, the integrity of the Pauline corpus is an evident fact and can be seen simply from a close reading of the letters themselves. To the extent that there are non-Pauline corruptions in those letters they would almost certainly be minor and infrequent.
On the other hand, and in stark contrast to the Pauline corpus, the authenticity of 2 Peter doesn't survive a close reading.
Drat, just read something challenging the historicity of all the Ignatian epistles.
The point is this: does the back-story of Ignatius actually make sense?
Why would the Romans transport Ignatius from Antioch to Rome in order to execute him? No reason at all. If they'd wanted him dead, they'd have executed him in Antioch. Thus the basic premise underlying all the Ignatian epistles is in doubt.
Does that mean another one of the fixed points has now come loose?
ps Please anonymous people, can you sign off with at least a couple of initials (they don't have to be yours if you don't want them to be, just be consistent) so I know if you're the same anonymous posting on different threads. Thanks.
Ricky,
"Why would the Romans transport Ignatius from Antioch to Rome in order to execute him? No reason at all. If they'd wanted him dead, they'd have executed him in Antioch. Thus the basic premise underlying all the Ignatian epistles is in doubt."
Friend, ancient history doesn't work like this, what seems obvious to you as a 21st century Westerner has no bearing on the logic of these events. To wit, if you read enough ancient history you'll quickly discover that the ancients did all sorts of things that don't make any sense to us today. To be sure, there could be all sorts of non-obvious why Roman authorities would transport Ignatius from Antioch to Rome before executing him.
- NW
Do we have any other known instances of Romans transporting a prisoner halfway across the empire just to execute them?
Ricky,
Sorry, I don't have any examples. I'm only a mathematician who has spent a lot of time with the NT and not an ancient historian.
- NW
I just found your blog (via Like A Child)--thanks for sharing your journey. Your thinking/approach is eerily (actually, comfortingly) similar to mine. I also read all three volumes of NT Wright, and am about to read the Ignatian epistles (read 1 Clement a while ago, forgot to follow up on that project). I'm curious to read the beginning of your blog to get more context; will be following your new posts and perhaps commenting if I ever have something to say besides "Yeah, I totally agree! ...yep." Thanks for the encouragement.
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