The Heresy of Orthodoxy (Foreword by I. Howard Marshall) E-Book

Andreas J. Köstenberger

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 468

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Beginning with Walter Bauer in 1934, the denial of clear orthodoxy in early Christianity has shaped and largely defined modern New Testament criticism, recently given new life through the work of spokesmen like Bart Ehrman. Spreading from academia into mainstream media, the suggestion that diversity of doctrine in the early church led to many competing orthodoxies is indicative of today's postmodern relativism. Authors Köstenberger and Kruger engage Ehrman and others in this polemic against a dogged adherence to popular ideals of diversity. Köstenberger and Kruger's accessible and careful scholarship not only counters the "Bauer Thesis" using its own terms, but also engages overlooked evidence from the New Testament. Their conclusions are drawn from analysis of the evidence of unity in the New Testament, the formation and closing of the canon, and the methodology and integrity of the recording and distribution of religious texts within the early church.

Leseprobe

The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity Copyright © 2010 by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Michael J. Kruger

Published by Crossway                  1300 Crescent Street                  Wheaton, Illinois 60187

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. The “NIV” and “New International Version” Trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica. Use of either trademark requires the permission of Biblica.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the authors.

Trade paperback ISBN:                978-1-4335-0143-2 PDF ISBN:                                    978-1-4335-1813-3 Mobipocket ISBN:                        978-1-4335-1814-0 ePub ISBN:                                   978-1-4335-2179-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Köstenberger, Andreas J., 1957-

      The heresy of orthodoxy : how contemporary culture’s fascination with diversity has reshaped our understanding of early Christianity / Andreas J. Köstenberger and Michael J. Kruger; foreword by I. Howard Marshall.

            p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 978-1-4335-0143-2 (tpb)—ISBN 978-1-4335-1813-3 (hbk)—ISBN 978-1-4335-1814-0 (mobipocket)—ISBN 978-1-4335-2179-9 (ebook) 1. Theology, Doctrinal— History—Early church, ca. 30-600. 2. Christian heresies—History—Early church, ca. 30-600. 3. Bible. N.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 4. Church history—Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600. 5. Postmodern theology. 6. Bauer, Walter, 1877–1960. 7. Ehrman, Bart D. I. Kruger, Michael J. II. Title.

BT1317.K67 2010 273'.1—dc22

                                                                                                       2009047371

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

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For Lauren as you head off to college Romans 12:1–21 John 2:15–17

and

For Melissa for all your encouragement and support

Contents

Foreword: I. Howard Marshall

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: The Contemporary Battle to Recast the Origins of the New Testament and Early Christianity

Part 1: The Heresy of Orthodoxy: Pluralism and the Origins of the New Testament

1. The Bauer-Ehrman Thesis: Its Origins and Influence

2. Unity and Plurality: How Diverse Was Early Christianity?

3. Heresy in the New Testament: How Early Was It?

Part 2: Picking the Books: Tracing the Development of the New Testament Canon

4. Starting in the Right Place: The Meaning of Canon in Early Christianity

5. Interpreting the Historical Evidence: The Emerging Canon in Early Christianity

6. Establishing the Boundaries: Apocryphal Books and the Limits of the Canon

Part 3: Changing the Story: Manuscripts, Scribes, and TextualTransmission

7. Keepers of the Text: How Were Texts Copied and Circulated in the Ancient World?

8. Tampering with the Text: Was the New Testament Text Changed Along the Way?

Concluding Appeal: The Heresy of Orthodoxy in a Topsy-turvy World

Foreword

Old heresies and arguments against Christianity have a habit of reappearing long after they have been thought dead. Somebody has commented that most objections to the faith were voiced by Celsus (who was relentlessly answered by Origen). Nevertheless, there is a sufficient appearance of plausibility in some of them to justify their being taken off the shelf, dusted down, and given a makeover. When this happens, they need fresh examination to save a new generation of readers from being taken in by them.

Such is the case with the thesis of the German lexicographer Walter Bauer, who single-handedly read the entire corpus of ancient Greek literature in order to produce his magnificent Lexicon to the New Testament. Its worth is entirely independent of the fact that its compiler was in some respects a radical critic who claimed on the basis of his researches into second-century Christianity that there was no common set of “orthodox” beliefs in the various Christian centers but rather a set of disparate theologies, out of which the strongest (associated with Rome) assumed the dominant position and portrayed itself as true, or “orthodox.”

At first there were indeed no concepts of orthodoxy and heresy, and this division was late in being consciously developed. Bauer claimed (without much argument) that this situation could be traced back into the New Testament period. His 1934 monograph defending his case had little influence in the English-speaking world until its translation in 1971. Various writers showed it to be flawed in its analysis of the early churches and their theology and mistaken in assuming that the New Testament writers did not know the difference between orthodoxy and heresy. Now it has undergone resuscitation (if not resurrection) largely through the popular writings of Bart Ehrman, who brings in the new evidence for many varied forms of early Christianity in Gnostic documents and adds his own contribution by pointing to the many variations in the manuscripts of the New Testament that he sees as evidence of differences in doctrine.

The new presentation of the Bauer hypothesis needs a fresh dissection lest readers of it be tempted to think that it demands credence. The authors of this volume set out the arguments on both sides with fairness coupled with critical examination. They show that Bauer’s original case has been demolished brick by brick by other competent scholars. They argue that the existence of various Christian splinter groups in no way shows that there was a farrago of different theologies from which people were at liberty to pick and choose. They re-present the incontrovertible evidence that the distinctions between truth and falsity and between orthodoxy and heresy were clearly made within the New Testament, and they argue that the New Testament writings are in basic agreement with one another in their theologies. They show how the concept of conformity to Scripture was an innate characteristic of a covenantal theology. And they rout the appeal to variations in New Testament manuscripts as evidence for theological differences in the early church.

The authors write as adherents of what would probably be identified as an evangelical Christianity that maintains a belief in the divine inspiration of Scripture, but, so far as I can see, their arguments are not dependent on this belief and rest on solid evidence and reasonable arguments, so that their case is one that should be compelling to those who may not share their theological position. They present their arguments clearly and simply, so that, although this book is based on wide and accurate scholarship, it should be widely accessible to readers who want to know about the themes they address.

I am grateful for this careful and courteous assessment of the issues at stake and commend it most warmly to all who want to know more about the origins of Christian practice and theology.

—I. Howard Marshall

Emeritus Professor of New Testament Exegesis,University of Aberdeen, Scotland

List of Abbreviations

ABD

Anchor Bible Dictionary

AJP

American Journal of Philology

ANRW

Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung

ATR

Anglican Theological Review

AUSS

Andrews University Seminary Studies

Bib

Biblica

Bijdr

Bijdragen

BBR

Bulletin for Biblical Research

BFCT

Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher Theologie

BJRL

Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester

CBQ

Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CSNTM

Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts

DJG

Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels

DLNT

Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments

DPL

Dictionary of Paul and His Letters

FRLANT     

Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments

HTR

Harvard Theological Review

ICC

International Critical Commentary

Int

Interpretation

JBL

Journal of Biblical Literature

JEA

Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

JECS

Journal of Early Christian Studies

JETS

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JR

Journal of Religion

JSNT

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JSNTSup

Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series

JSOT

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JTS

Journal of Theological Studies

LCL

Loeb Classical Library

LNTS

Library of New Testament Studies

NAC

New American Commentary

NIB

The New Interpreter’s Bible

NIBCNT

New International Biblical Commentary on the New Testament

NIGTC

New International Greek Testament Commentary

NovT

Novum Testamentum

NSBT

New Studies in Biblical Theology

NTS

New Testament Studies

ODCC

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church

PNTC

Pillar New Testament Commentary

ProEccl

Pro ecclesia

RBL

Review of Biblical Literature

SBLSBS

Society of Biblical Literature Sources for Biblical Studies

SecCent

Second Century

SPap

Studia papyrologica

StPatr

Studia patristica

ST

Studia theologica

TDNT

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

Them

Themelios

TS

Theological Studies

TNTC

Tyndale New Testament Commentaries

TJ

Trinity Journal

TynBul

Tyndale Bulletin

VC

Vigiliae christianae

WBC

Word Biblical Commentary

WTJ

Westminster Theological Journal

WUNT

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

ZAW

Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZNW

Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche

ZPE

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

Introduction The Contemporary Battle to Recast the Origins of the New Testament and Early Christianity

What is truth? In a world in which at times right seems wrong—or even worse, where the lines between right and wrong are blurred to the point that we are no longer sure if there even is such a thing as right and wrong—Pilate’s question to Jesus takes on new urgency. Instead, all truth, including morality, becomes perspectival and subjective, a matter of nothing but personal preference and taste.1 In such a world, like in the days of the judges, everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes, but unlike in the days of the judges, this is not meant as an indictment but celebrated as the ultimate expression of truly enlightened humanity. All is fluid, doctrine is dead, and diversity reigns. Not only in restaurants and shopping malls, but even in churches and houses of worship, what people are looking for is a variety of options, and if they don’t like what they see, they take their business—or worship—elsewhere. Consumers control which products are made, children are catered to by parents, students determine what is taught in our schools and universities, and no one should tell anyone else what to do—or at least not acknowledge that they do. We live in an age that prides itself on its independence, rejection of authority, and embrace of pluralism. Truth is dead; long live diversity!

In this topsy-turvy world of pluralism and postmodernity, where reason has been replaced as the arbiter of truth by perspectivalism and the unfettered and untouchable authority of personal experience, conventional notions are turned on their head. What used to be regarded as heresy is the new orthodoxy of the day, and the only heresy that remains is orthodoxy itself. “The Heresy of Orthodoxy” is more than a catchy title or a ploy concocted to entice potential readers to buy this book. It is an epithet that aptly captures the prevailing spirit of the age whose tentacles are currently engulfing the Christian faith in a deadly embrace, aiming to subvert the movement at its very core. The new orthodoxy—the “gospel” of diversity—challenges head-on the claim that Jesus and the early Christians taught a unified message that they thought was absolutely true and its denials absolutely false. Instead, advocates of religious diversity such as Walter Bauer and Bart Ehrman argue not only that contemporary diversity is good and historic Christianity unduly narrow, but that the very notion of orthodoxy is a later fabrication not true to the convictions of Jesus and the first Christians themselves.

In the first century, claim Bauer, Ehrman, and other adherents to the “diversity” doctrine, there was no such thing as “Christianity” (in the singular), but only Christianities (in the plural), different versions of belief, all of which claimed to be “Christian” with equal legitimacy. The traditional version of Christianity that later came to be known as orthodoxy is but the form of Christianity espoused by the church in Rome, which emerged as the ecclesiastical victor in the power struggles waged during the second through the fourth centuries. What this means for us today, then, is that we must try to get back to the more pristine notion of diversity that prevailed in the first century before ecclesiastical and political power squelched and brutally extinguished the fragile notion that diversity—previously known as “heresy”—is the only orthodoxy there is.

Indeed, the “new orthodoxy” has turned conventional thinking upside down. In this book, we endeavor to take you on a journey on which we will explore such questions as: Who picked the books of the Bible, and why? Did the ancient scribes who copied the biblical manuscripts change the Christian story? Was the New Testament changed along the way, so that we can no longer know what the original authors of Scripture wrote? In addressing these questions, we will take our point of departure from a German scholar whose name you may never have heard but who has perhaps done more to pave the way for the new orthodoxy than anyone else: Walter Bauer. In his work Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, Bauer stated what is now commonly known as the “Bauer thesis”: the view that close study of the major urban centers at the end of the first and early second centuries reveals that early Christianity was characterized by significant doctrinal diversity, so that there was no “orthodoxy” or “heresy” at the inception of Christianity but only diversity—heresy preceded orthodoxy.

The implications of Bauer’s thesis, picked up by Bart Ehrman and others, are somewhat complex, which requires that we take up his argument in three separate but interrelated parts. Part 1 of this volume is devoted to the investigation of “The Heresy of Orthodoxy: Pluralism and the Origins of the New Testament.” In chapter 1, we will look at the origin and influence of the Bauer-Ehrman thesis, including its appropriation and critique by others. Chapter 2 examines Bauer’s geographical argument for the precedence of early diversity in the Christian movement and considers patristic evidence for early orthodoxy and heresy, and chapter 3 turns to an area of investigation that Bauer surprisingly neglected—the New Testament data itself. How diverse was early Christianity, and did heresy in fact precede orthodoxy? These are the questions that will occupy us in the first part of the book as we explore the larger paradigmatic questions raised by the Bauer-Ehrman proposal.

Part 2, “Picking the Books: Tracing the Development of the New Testament Canon,” will take up the related question of the Christian canon, the collection of divinely inspired books. Ehrman and other advocates of the Bauer thesis claim that with regard to the canon, too, early diversity prevailed, and the canon likewise was but a late imposition of the Roman church’s view onto the rest of Christendom. Is this an accurate representation of how the canon came to be? Or do Ehrman and other diversity advocates have their own ax to grind and seek to impose their agenda onto the larger culture? This will involve a discussion of other alleged candidates for inclusion in the Christian Scriptures such as apocryphal gospels, letters, and other writings. Are there indeed “lost Christianities” and “lost Scriptures” that, if rediscovered, could reveal to us “the faiths we never knew,” as Ehrman contends?

Part 3, finally, “Changing the Story: Manuscripts, Scribes, and Textual Transmission,” addresses another fascinating topic: whether the “keepers of the text,” ancient scribes and copyists, actually “tampered with the text,” that is, changed the New Testament to conform it to their own beliefs and preferences. Again, this is what Ehrman alleges, in an effort to show that even if we wanted to know what first-century orthodoxy was—though, of course, Ehrman himself, as a devoted follower of Walter Bauer, believes there was no such thing—we would not be able to do so because the original text is now irretrievably lost. After all, have not the autographs (the original copies of Scripture) perished? How, then, can Christians today claim that they have the inspired text? This, too, is a vital question that strikes at the very core of the Christian faith and must therefore command our utmost attention.

As the remainder of this volume will make clear, as scholars, we believe that Bauer, Ehrman, and others are profoundly mistaken in their reconstruction of early Christianity. But this is not the primary reason why we wrote this book. The main reason why we feel so strongly about this issue is that the scholarly squabbles about second-century geographical expressions of Christianity, the formation of the canon, and the preservation of the text of Scripture are part of a larger battle that is raging today over the nature and origins of Christianity. This battle, in turn, we are convinced, is driven by forces that seek to discredit the biblical message about Jesus, the Lord and Messiah and Son of God, and the absolute truth claims of Christianity. The stakes in this battle are high indeed.

Finally, for those who are interested in the history of thought and in the way in which paradigms serve as a controlling framework for how we view the world, this book has yet another intriguing contribution to make. The question addressed by the Bauer-Ehrman thesis serves as a case study for how an idea is born, how and why it is appropriated by some and rejected by others, and how a paradigm attains the compelling influence over people who are largely unacquainted with the specific issues it entails. As Darrell Bock has recently argued, and as even Bart Ehrman has conceded, Bauer’s thesis has been largely discredited in the details, but, miraculously, the corpse still lives—in fact, it seems stronger than ever! What is the secret of this larger-than-life persona that transcends factual arguments based on the available evidence? We believe it is that diversity, the “gospel” of our culture, has now assumed the mantle of compelling truth—and this “truth” must not be bothered by the pesky, obstreperous details of patient, painstaking research, because in the end, the debate is not about the details but about the larger paradigm—diversity.

As in any such book, we are indebted to those who helped make it possible. In the first place, these are our wives, Marny and Melissa, and our children. We also want to acknowledge the support of our respective institutions, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Reformed Theological Seminary, and express appreciation to the wonderful people at Crossway for their expert handling of the manuscript. Thanks are also due Keith Campbell for his competent research assistance in preparing chapters 1 through 3. Finally, we were grateful to be able to build on the capable work of others before us who have seen the many flaws in the Bauer-Ehrman thesis, including Darrell Bock, Paul Trebilco, Jeffrey Bingham, Craig Blaising, Thomas Robinson, and I. Howard Marshall. It is our sincere hope that this volume will make a small contribution toward a defense of the “faith once for all delivered to the saints” in our generation. Soli Deo gloria.

1 See Andreas J. Köstenberger, ed., Whatever Happened to Truth? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005).

PART 1 THE HERESY OF ORTHODOXY Pluralism and the Origins of the New Testament

1 The Bauer-Ehrman Thesis Its Origins and Influence

It is no exaggeration to say that the Bauer-Ehrman thesis is the prevailing paradigm with regard to the nature of early Christianity in popular American culture today. As mentioned in the Introduction, people who have never heard the name “Walter Bauer” have been impacted by this scholar’s view of Jesus and the nature of early Christian beliefs. One main reason for Bauer’s surprising impact is that his views have found a fertile soil in the contemporary cultural climate.

Specifically, in Bart Ehrman, Bauer has found a fervent and eloquent spokesman who has made Bauer’s thesis his own and incorporated it in his populist campaign for a more inclusive, diverse brand of Christianity. It cannot be said too emphatically that the study of the Bauer thesis is not merely of antiquarian interest. Bauer’s views have been adequately critiqued by others. What remains to be done here is to show that recent appropriations of Bauer’s work by scholars such as Ehrman and the fellows of the Jesus Seminar can only be as viable as the validity of Bauer’s original thesis itself.

In the present chapter, we set out to describe the Bauer-Ehrman thesis and to provide a representative survey of the reception of Bauer’s work, both positive and negative, since its original publication in 1934 and the English translation of Bauer’s volume in 1971. This will set the stage for our closer examination of the particulars of Bauer’s thesis in chapter 2 and an investigation of the relevant New Testament data in chapter 3.

Walter Bauer and Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity

Walter Bauer, born in Königsberg, East Prussia, in 1877, was a German theologian, lexicographer, and scholar of early church history. He was raised in Marburg, where his father served as professor, and studied theology at the universities of Marburg, Strasburg, and Berlin. After a lengthy and impressive career at Breslau and Göttingen, he died in 1960. Although Bauer is best known for his magisterial Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, perhaps his most significant scholarly contribution came with his work Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity.1

Prior to the publication of this volume, it was widely held that Christianity was rooted in the unified preaching of Jesus’ apostles and that it was only later that this orthodoxy (right belief) was corrupted by various forms of heresy (or heterodoxy, “other” teaching that deviated from the orthodox standard or norm). Simply put, orthodoxy preceded heresy. In his seminal work, however, Bauer reversed this notion by proposing that heresy—that is, a variety of beliefs each of which could legitimately claim to be authentically “Christian”—preceded the notion of orthodoxy as a standard set of Christian doctrinal beliefs.

According to Bauer, the orthodoxy that eventually coalesced merely represented the consensus view of the ecclesiastical hierarchy that had the power to impose its view onto the rest of Christendom. Subsequently, this hierarchy, in particular the Roman church, rewrote the history of the church in keeping with its views, eradicating traces of earlier diversity. Thus what later became known as orthodoxy does not organically flow from the teaching of Jesus and the apostles but reflects the predominant viewpoint of the Roman church as it came into full bloom between the fourth and sixth centuries ad.2

Although Bauer provided a historical reconstruction of early Christianity that differed radically from his scholarly predecessors, others had put the necessary historical and philosophical building blocks into place from which Bauer could construct his thesis. Not only had the Enlightenment weakened the notion of the supernatural origins of the Christian message, but the history-of-religions school had propagated a comparative religions approach to the study of early Christianity, and the eminent church historian Adolf von Harnack had engaged in a pioneering study of heresy in general and of the Gnostic movement in particular.3 Perhaps most importantly, F. C. Baur of the Tübingen School had postulated an initial conflict between Pauline and Petrine Christianity that subsequently merged into orthodoxy.4

The “Bauer Thesis”

How, then, did Bauer form his provocative thesis that heresy preceded orthodoxy? In essence, Bauer’s method was historical in nature, involving an examination of the beliefs attested at four major geographical centers of early Christianity: Asia Minor, Egypt, Edessa, and Rome. With regard to Asia Minor, Bauer pointed to the conflict in Antioch between Peter and Paul (shades of F. C. Baur) and the references to heresy in the Pastoral Epistles and the letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation.

Bauer observed in Egypt the early presence of Gnostic Christians, contending that there was no representative of truly orthodox Christianity in this locale until Demetrius of Alexandria (ad 189–231). With regard to Edessa, a city located just north of modern Turkey and Syria, Bauer argued that the teaching of Marcion constituted the earliest form of Christianity and that orthodoxy did not prevail until the fourth or fifth century.5

Rome, for its part, according to Bauer, sought to assert its authority as early as AD 95 when Clement, bishop of Rome, sought to compel Corinth to obey Roman doctrinal supremacy. In due course, Bauer contended, the Roman church imposed its version of orthodox Christian teaching onto the rest of Christendom. What is more, the Roman church rewrote history, expunging the record of deviant forms of belief, in order to further consolidate its ecclesiastical authority.

By the fourth century, the orthodox victory was assured. However, according to Bauer, true, open-minded historical investigation shows that in each of the four major urban centers of early Christianity, heresy preceded orthodoxy. Diverse beliefs were both geographically widespread and earlier than orthodox Christian teaching. Thus the notion that orthodoxy continued the unified teaching of Jesus and of the apostles was a myth not borne out by serious, responsible historical research.

The Reception of Bauer’s Work

Although Bauer’s thesis was initially slow to impact scholarship, in part because of the cultural isolation of Germany during the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II, in due course it produced a considerable number of reactions.6 Two major types of response emerged. One group of scholars appropriated Bauer’s thesis and used it as a basis for reexamining the origins of Christianity in light of his theory.7 Another group lodged a series of powerful critiques against the Bauer thesis.8 In the remainder of this chapter, we will trace these varying responses to Bauer in an effort to gauge the scholarly reception of the Bauer thesis and to lay the foundation for an appraisal of the merits of his work for contemporary investigations of the origins of early Christianity.

Scholarly Appropriations of Bauer

One of the foremost proponents of the Bauer thesis in the twentieth century was Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), longtime professor of New Testament studies at the University of Marburg (1921–1951).9 Bultmann made Bauer’s thesis the substructure of his New Testament theology that had a large impact on generations of scholars. Divorcing faith from history in keeping with his anti-supernatural, historical-critical methodology, Bultmann believed historical events such as the resurrection were inferior in importance to one’s existential faith in Jesus.10 It followed that, for Bultmann, historical orthodoxy was largely irrelevant. Marshaling Bauer’s thesis to support this claim, he stated baldly:

The diversity of theological interests and ideas is at first great. A norm or an authoritative court of appeal for doctrine is still lacking, and the proponents of directions of thought which were later rejected as heretical consider themselves completely Christian—such as Christian Gnosticism. In the beginning, faith is the term which distinguishes the Christian Congregation from the Jews and the heathen, not –orthodoxy (right doctrine).11

Later on in the same volume, Bultmann offered an entire excursus on Bauer’s thesis, a testament to its influence on Bultmann.12 The following quote shows that Bultmann followed Bauer completely in his assessment of the origins of early Christianity:

W. Bauer has shown that that doctrine which in the end won out in the ancient Church as the “right” or “orthodox” doctrine stands at the end of a development or, rather, is the result of a conflict among various shades of doctrine, and that heresy was not, as the ecclesiastical tradition holds, an apostasy, a degeneration, but was already present at the beginning—or, rather, that by the triumph of a certain teaching as the “right doctrine” divergent teachings were condemned as heresy. Bauer also showed it to be probably that in this conflict the Roman congregation played a decisive role.13

Bauer’s thesis also provided the matrix for Arnold Ehrhardt (1903–1963), lecturer in ecclesiastical history at the University of Manchester, to examine the Apostles’ Creed in relation to the creedal formulas of the early church (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:3–4).14 Ehrhardt applied Bauer’s understanding of diversity in the early church to a study of the formation of the Apostles’ Creed. He concluded that the contents of the Apostles’ Creed and the New Testament’s creedal formulas differed, arguing that the diversity of early Christianity supported this contention. Ehrhardt acknowledged that Bauer made his exploration of this topic possible.15

In 1965, Helmut Koester, professor of ecclesiastical history at Harvard University and one of Bultmann’s students, applied Bauer’s thesis to the apostolic period.16 In 1971, Koester, joined by James M. Robinson, professor of religion at Claremont University and another of Bultmann’s students, expanded his article into a book, Trajectories through Early Christianity. In this influential appropriation of Bauer’s thesis, Koester and Robinson argued that “obsolete” categories within New Testament scholarship, such as “canonical” or “non-canonical,” “orthodox” or “heretical,” were inadequate.17 According to these authors, such categories were too rigid to accommodate the early church’s prevailing diversity.

As an alternative, Koester and Robinson proposed the term “trajectory.”18 Rather than conceiving of early church history in terms of heresy and orthodoxy, these scholars preferred to speak of early trajectories that eventually led to the formation of the notions of orthodoxy and heresy, notions that were not yet present during the early stages of the history of the church.19 Koester’s and Robinson’s argument, of course, assumed that earliest Christianity did not espouse orthodox beliefs from which later heresies diverged. In this belief these authors concurred entirely with Bauer, who had likewise argued that earliest Christianity was characterized by diversity and that the phenomenon of orthodoxy emerged only later.

James D. G. Dunn, professor of divinity at the University of Durham, embarked on a highly influential appropriation of the Bauer thesis in his 1977 work Unity and Diversity in the New Testament.20 Whereas Bauer (despite the title of his work!) primarily focused on the second-century situation; while Ehrhardt compared the Apostles’ Creed to selected New Testament passages; and while Koester and Robinson explored extrabiblical trajectories, Dunn applied Bauer’s thesis squarely to the New Testament itself. Dunn’s conclusion was that, in line with Bauer’s findings, diversity in the New Testament trumped unity. At the same time, Dunn suggested that the New Testament contained a general unifying theme, a belief in Jesus as the exalted Lord. According to Dunn:

That unifying element was the unity between the historical Jesus and the exalted Christ, that is to say, the conviction that the wandering charismatic preacher from Nazareth had ministered, died and been raised from the dead to bring God and man finally together, the recognition that the divine power through which they now worshipped and were encountered and accepted by God was one and the same person, Jesus, the man, the Christ, the Son of God, the Lord, the life-giving Spirit.21

At first glance, Dunn’s proposed unifying theme runs counter to Bauer’s thesis that there was no underlying doctrinal unity in earliest Christianity. However, as Daniel Harrington stated, “the expression of this unifying strand is radically diverse—so diverse that one must admit that there was no single normative form of Christianity in the first century.”22 What is more, Dunn believed that this unifying theme resulted from a struggle between differing viewpoints, with the winners claiming their version of this belief as orthodox. Dunn, then, was the first to provide a thorough assessment of the New Testament data against the backdrop of Bauer’s thesis and to affirm the thesis’s accuracy when held up to the New Testament evidence.

The Bauer Thesis Goes Mainstream

While Bauer, Ehrhardt, Koester, Robinson, and Dunn wrote primarily for their academic peers, Elaine Pagels, professor of religion at Princeton University, and Bart Ehrman, professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, chose to extend the discussion to a popular audience.23 In her 1979 work The Gnostic Gospels, Pagels popularized Bauer’s thesis by applying it to the Nag Hammadi documents, which were not discovered until 1945 and thus had not been available to Bauer. Pagels contended that these Gnostic writings further supported the notion of an early, variegated Christianity that was homogenized only at a later point.24

In 2003, Pagels reengaged the Bauer thesis in Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, another work directed toward a popular readership. In this latter work, Pagels examined the Gospel of Thomas, a Nag Hammadi document, and claimed that modern Christians should move beyond belief in rigid dogmas to a healthy plurality of religious views since the early Christians were likewise not dogmatic but extremely diverse. As the first century gave way to the second, Pagels argued, Christians became increasingly narrow in their doctrinal views. This narrowing, so Pagels, caused divisions between groups that had previously been theologically diverse. The group espousing “orthodoxy” arose in the context of this theological narrowing and subsequently came to outnumber and conquer the Gnostics and other “heretics.”

Bart Ehrman, even more than Pagels, popularized the Bauer thesis in numerous publications and public appearances, calling it “the most important book on the history of early Christianity to appear in the twentieth century.”25 Besides being a prolific scholar, having published more than twenty books (some making it onto bestseller lists) and contributing frequently to scholarly journals, Ehrman promotes the Bauer thesis in the mainstream media in an unprecedented way. Ehrman’s work has been featured in publications such as Time, The New Yorker, and the Washington Post, and he has appeared on Dateline NBC, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, The History Channel, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, the BBC, NPR, and other major media outlets.26

Part Two of Ehrman’s book Lost Christianities, “Winners and Losers,” demonstrates his commitment to, and popularization of, the Bauer thesis.27 Ehrman argues that the earliest proponents of what later became orthodox Christians (called “proto-orthodox” by Ehrman) triumphed over all other legitimate representations of Christianity (chap. 8). This victory came about through conflicts that are attested in polemical treatises, personal slurs, forgeries, and falsifications (chaps. 9–10). The final victors were the proto-orthodox who got the “last laugh” by sealing the victory, finalizing the New Testament, and choosing the documents that best suited their purposes and theology (chap. 11).28 In essence, Ehrman claims that the “winners” (i.e., orthodox Christians) forced their beliefs onto others by deciding which books to include in or exclude from Christian Scripture. Posterity is aware of these “losers” (i.e., “heretics”) only by their sparsely available written remains that the “winners” excluded from the Bible, such as The Gospel of Peter or The Gospel of Mary and other exemplars of “the faiths we never knew.”

Summary

Scholars favorable to the Bauer thesis have appropriated his theory in a variety of ways. They have made it the central plank in their overall conception of New Testament Christianity (Bultmann); have used it to revision early church history (Ehrhardt); have taken it as the point of departure to suggest alternate terminology for discussions of the nature of early Christianity (Koester and Robinson); and employed it in order to reassess the unity and diversity of New Testament theology (Dunn).

More recently, scholars such as Pagels and Ehrman have promoted the Bauer thesis in the popular arena, making the case that contemporary Christians should move beyond the anachronistic and dogmatic notion of orthodoxy and instead embrace a diversity of equally legitimate beliefs. In this they appealed to the Bauer thesis, according to which it was diversity that prevailed also during the days of the early church before the institutional hierarchy imposed its orthodox standards onto the rest of Christendom.

Critiques of Bauer29Initial Reviews

While, as we have seen, many viewed Bauer’s thesis favorably and appropriated it for their own purposes, there were others who took a more critical stance. Georg Strecker observes that in the years following the 1934 publication of Bauer’s work, more than twenty-four book reviews appeared in six different languages. Although most reviews were appreciative, the following four points are representative of the tenor of the critical reviews that appeared.30

First, Bauer’s conclusions were unduly conjectural in light of the limited nature of the available evidence and in some cases arguments from silence altogether.

Second, Bauer unduly neglected the New Testament evidence and anachronistically used second-century data to describe the nature of “earliest” (first-century) Christianity. Bauer’s neglect of the earliest available evidence is especially ironic since the title of his book suggested that the subject of his investigation was the earliest form of Christianity.

Third, Bauer grossly oversimplified the first-century picture, which was considerably more complex than Bauer’s portrayal suggested. For example, orthodoxy could have been present early in more locations than Bauer acknowledged.

Fourth, Bauer neglected existing theological standards in the early church. The remainder of this chapter will explore how later critics built upon these early reviews in a variety of ways.

Later Critiques

Henry E. W. Turner, Lightfoot Chair of Divinity at Durham, offered the first substantial critique of Bauer’s thesis in 1954 when delivering the prestigious Bampton Lectures at Oxford University.31 Turner conceded that theologians prior to Bauer “overestimated the extent of doctrinal fixity in the early church.”32 However, he argued that Bauer caused the pendulum to swing too far in the opposite direction, charging that followers of Bauer “imply too high a degree of openness or flexibility.”33 Over against Bauer’s diagnosed prevailing diversity in early Christianity, Turner argued for the following three kinds of “fixed elements.”34

First, the core of early Christianity included what Turner called “religious facts”: a “realistic experience of the Eucharist”; belief in God as Father-Creator; belief in Jesus as the historical Redeemer; and belief in the divinity of Christ. Second, Turner maintained that the early Christians recognized the centrality of biblical revelation. However one delineates the New Testament canon and views its closure, the early church viewed it (at least in part) as revelatory. Third, the early believers possessed a creed and a rule of faith.35 Turner here refers to the “stylized summaries of credenda which are of frequent occurrence in the first two Christian centuries to the earliest creedal forms themselves.”36 Such creeds include the earliest affirmations that “Jesus is Messiah” (Mark 8:29; John 11:27); “Jesus is Lord” (Rom. 10:9; Phil. 2:11; Col. 2:6); and “Jesus is the Son of God” (Matt. 14:33; Acts 8:37).

These fixed elements did not result in a rigid first-century theology. Instead, early Christianity, according to Turner, had the following three “flexible elements.” First, there were “differences in Christian idiom.”37 For example, within early Christianity, an eschatological and a metaphysical interpretation existed side by side. However, Turner suggested that “it could be maintained that the Christian deposit of faith is not wedded irrevocably to either idiom.”38 Second, there were differences in backgrounds of thought. In other words, there existed varying philosophical viewpoints among the earliest Christians that resulted in different ways of explaining the same phenomena.39 A final element of flexibility in early Christianity “arises from the individual characteristics of the theologians themselves.”40 The biblical writers were not monolithic but had diverse intellects and personalities.

Turner also more methodically confirmed the diagnosis of earlier reviewers that Bauer’s thesis was drawn from an insufficient evidentiary base and did not demonstrably follow from the evidence he adduced. He also observed that Bauer’s conception of “orthodoxy” was unduly narrow, while orthodoxy was “richer and more varied than Bauer himself allows.”41

While Turner critiqued Bauer by noting both fixed and flexible elements in early Christianity, Jerry Flora sought to establish a historical continuity between early and later orthodoxy. In his doctoral dissertation, submitted in 1972, Flora set out to delineate, analyze, and evaluate Bauer’s hypothesis.42 He argued that the notion of orthodoxy that came to prevail in Rome had already been “growing in the soil of the church’s first two generations.”43 Thus Flora maintained that there was essential historical continuity between earlier and later orthodoxy, contending that later orthodoxy was grounded in earlier doctrinal convictions that through the early apostles extended all the way back to Jesus himself: “What became the dogma of the church ca. AD 200 was a religious life which [was] determined throughout by Jesus Christ.”44 According to Flora, later orthodoxy “demonstrated historical continuity, theological balance, and providential guidance.”45

I. Howard Marshall, professor of New Testament exegesis at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, critiqued Bauer from a New Testament vantage point by establishing the presence of early orthodoxy. In an influential 1976 article, Marshall suggested that by the end of the first century a clear distinction already existed between orthodoxy and heresy. Marshall argued that orthodoxy was not a later development and that Bauer’s argument does not fit the New Testament data. The New Testament writers, Marshall maintained, “often see quite clearly where the lines of what is compatible with the gospel and what is not compatible are to be drawn.”46 In some places, heresy may have preceded orthodoxy, but Bauer was wrong to suggest that orthodoxy developed later. The only point that Bauer’s thesis proves is that “there was variety of belief in the first century.”47

In an article published in 1979, Brice Martin, lecturer in New Testament at Ontario Bible College, explored the unity of the New Testament using the historical-critical method.48 As a foil, Martin took Werner Georg Kümmel who stated, “The unity of the New Testament message . . . cannot be presupposed as obvious on the basis of strictly historical research.”49 Martin argued just the opposite. His concern was not to study particular places where supposed New Testament contradictions occur but to offer a methodology that allows for a unified New Testament. He suggested that “significant differences are not significant contradictions (e.g., Paul versus James).”50

James McCue leveled a critique against Bauer through a narrower historical angle in a 1979 article, “Orthodoxy and Heresy: Walter Bauer and the Valentinians.” McCue did not set out to correct Bauer’s entire thesis but only to provide a refutation of Bauer’s perception of the relationship between orthodoxy and heresy among the Valentinians.51 The Valentinians were early second-century followers of Valentinus (c. AD 100–160), a Gnostic who founded a school in Rome.52 McCue argued that the Valentinians originated and evolved from orthodoxy rather than, as Bauer had suggested, from an early heresy. In other words, Bauer was incorrect to suggest that the Valentinians were an example of heresy that preceded orthodoxy.

In 1989 Thomas Robinson, in a revised version of his McMaster PhD dissertation, took the Bauer thesis head on in The Bauer Thesis Examined: The Geography of Heresy in the Early Christian Church. He approached the issue of orthodoxy and heresy in the first century from the same perspective as Bauer, namely by reviewing the evidence region by region. In addition, Robinson rebutted the arguments of later scholars who built upon Bauer. Robinson consistently argued that the evidence in these geographical regions was inadequate for Bauer to lodge his claims. He concluded that Bauer’s work provided “an adequate basis for no conclusion other than that early Christianity was diverse.”53 In direct opposition to Bauer, Robinson argued that heresy in Ephesus and western Asia Minor, where evidence is more readily available, was neither early nor strong; rather, orthodoxy preceded heresy and was numerically larger. This conclusion, especially in light of the limited evidence, showed that the “failure of [Bauer’s] thesis in the only area where it can be adequately tested casts suspicion on the other areas of Bauer’s investigation.”54

In 1994, Arland J. Hultgren, professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, argued similarly to Flora that in the first century “there was a stream of Christianity—which indeed was a broad stream—that claimed that there were limits to diversity, and that persisted from the beginning on into the second century, providing the foundations for orthodoxy.”55 Although the orthodoxy of the fourth century did not exist in the first, its essential identity had been established and could not be divorced from its later, fuller manifestation. This identity had been forged from a struggle “for the truth of the gospel (right confession of faith),” which shaped “a normative tradition that provided the basis for the emergence of orthodoxy.”56 This orthodoxy was characterized by the following beliefs: (1) apostolic teaching is orthodox; (2) Jesus is Messiah, Lord, and God’s Son; (3) Christ died for humanity’s sins, was buried, and was raised from the dead; (4) the Lord is the God of Israel as the Creator, the Father of Jesus, the Father of humanity, and as the gift of the Spirit to the faithful. Early Christianity and later orthodoxy, then, stood in continuity with one another. Going back even farther than the early church, Hultgren argued that “there are clear lines of continuity between the word and deeds of the earthly Jesus and core affirmations of normative Christianity.”57 Thus, Hultgren agreed with Bauer that diversity existed in the earliest stages of the church, but suggested the following six unifying elements: theology, Christology, soteriology, ethos, the church as community, and the church as extended fellowship.58

I (Andreas Köstenberger) wrote an essay in 2002 that discussed the New Testament’s diversity and unity. I argued that legitimate, or acceptable, diversity existed in the New Testament. It did not follow, however, that this diversity rose to the level of mutually contradictory perspectives.59 I demonstrated my thesis by examining the unity in the midst of diversity between Jesus and Paul, the Synoptics and John, the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Epistles, and between Paul and Peter, John, and James. After describing genuine elements of diversity (in the sense of mutually complementing perspectives) in the New Testament, I turned to a discussion of its unity. I proposed three integrating motifs: (1) monotheism, that is, belief in the one God, Yahweh, as revealed in the Old Testament; (2) Jesus as the Christ and the exalted Lord; and (3) the saving message of the gospel.60 My conclusion was diametrically opposed to the Bauer thesis: “While Walter Bauer believed he could detect a movement from diversity to unity within the early church, the first Christians rather developed from unity to diversity.”61

Conclusion

Nearly seventy-five years after Bauer proposed his thesis that heresy preceded orthodoxy, scholars are still wrestling with the implications of his theory. McCue states that “[Bauer’s work] . . . remains . . . one of the great undigested pieces of twentieth-century scholarship.”62 What is beyond dispute is Bauer’s influence, which extends to virtually every discipline related to Christian studies. In fact, one of the ramifications of Bauer’s work is that many scholars no longer use the terms orthodoxy and heresy without accompanying quotation marks. As Robert Wild observed, Bauer’s work “has forced a generation of scholars to reflect upon early Christianity in a new way.”63

As we have seen, while many appropriated Bauer’s thesis in support of their own scholarly paradigms, others lodged weighty criticisms against the theory. They persuasively argued that legitimate elements of diversity in the New Testament did not negate its underlying doctrinal unity (Turner, Martin, Hultgren, and Köstenberger) and that historical continuity existed between the theologies of first-century Christians and the church of subsequent centuries (Flora). They also demonstrated the weaknesses of Bauer’s thesis by challenging his methodology and by subjecting his views to concrete—and damaging—examination in individual cases (McCue and Robinson) and by investigating his thesis in light of the New Testament data and finding it wanting (Marshall).

In more recent days, Bauer’s thesis has received a new lease on life through the emergence of postmodernism, the belief that truth is inherently subjective and a function of power.64 With the rise of postmodernism came the notion that the only heresy that remains is the belief in absolute truth— orthodoxy. Postmodernism, for its part, contends that the only absolute is diversity, that is, the notion that there are many truths, depending on a given individual’s perspective, background, experience, and personal preference. In such an intellectual climate, anyone holding to particular doctrinal beliefs while claiming that competing truth claims are wrong is held to be intolerant, dogmatic, or worse.65 It is no surprise that in this culture Bauer’s views are welcomed with open arms. The Bauer thesis, as propagated by spokespersons such as Bart Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, and the fellows of the Jesus Seminar, validates the prevailing affirmation of diversity by showing that diversity reaches back as far as early Christianity.

On a methodological level, Bauer bequeathed on scholarship a twofold legacy: (1) the historical method of examining the available evidence in the different geographical locales where Christianity emerged as the dominant religion; and (2) the contention that the Church Fathers overstated their case that Christianity emerged from a single, doctrinally unified movement.66 These two planks in Bauer’s scholarly procedure form the subject of the following chapter, where we will ask the question: Taken on its own terms, is Bauer’s historical reconstruction of second-century Christianity accurate? In order to adjudicate the question, we will examine Bauer’s geographical data cited in support of the pervasive and early presence of heresy. We will also look at the early patristic evidence to see whether orthodoxy was as sporadic and late as Bauer alleged.

1 Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, ed. Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krodel, trans. Paul J. Achtemeier (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971); the original German edition was Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im Ältesten Christentum (Tübingen: Mohr, 1934; 2d ed. Georg Strecker [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1964]). Other volumes on early Christianity by Bauer include a work on the canon of the epistles, Der Apostolos der Syrer in der Zeit von der Mitte des vierten Jahrhunderts bis zur Spaltung der Syrischen Kirche (Giessen: J. Ricker [Alfred Töpelmann], 1903); and a book on Jesus in the age of the New Testament Apocrypha, Das Leben Jesu: Im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967). For a brief overview of other relevant books and articles by Bauer see Hans Dieter Betz, “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Primitive Christianity,” Int 19 (1965): 299–311. On Bauer’s work as a lexicographer, see William J. Baird, History of New Testament Research, vol. 2: From Jonathan Edwards to Rudolf Bultmann (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 415–17 (with further bibliographic references); on Bauer as a historian and exegete, see ibid., 451–55, esp. 452–54 on Orthodoxy and Heresy.

2 For a humorous but informative parody of the Bauer thesis see Rodney J. Decker, “The Rehabilitation of Heresy: ‘Misquoting’ Earliest Christianity” (paper presented at the Bible Faculty Summit, Central Baptist Seminary, Minneapolis, July 2007), 1–2. For a summary of theories of development in early Christianity, see Jeffrey Bingham, “Development and Diversity in Early Christianity,” JETS 49 (2006): 45–66.

3 Concerning the history-of-religions school, see Carsten Colpe, “History of Religions School,” Encyclopedia of Christianity 2:563–65. Concerning Harnack’s views on the Gnostics, see Michel Desjardins, “Bauer and Beyond: On Recent Scholarly Discussions of Airesis the Early Christina Era,” SecCent 8 (1991): 65–82; and Karen L. King, What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 55–70. See also Adolf von Harnack, The Rise of Christian Theology and of Church Dogma, trans. Neill Buchanan (New York: Russell & Russell, 1958); idem, What Is Christianity? (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957).

4 Jerry Rees Flora, “A Critical Analysis of Walter Bauer’s Theory of Early Christian Orthodoxy and Heresy” (PhD diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1972), 212, suggests that F. C. Baur’s construction of early Christianity “proposed the angle of vision adopted” by Walter Bauer. A treatment of scholarly contributions prior to Bauer exceeds the scope of this chapter. For a discussion of Bauer’s theory in the context of the history of scholarship see Flora, “Critical Analysis,” 37–88. See also William Wrede’s proposal of an antithesis between Jesus and Paul in Paul, trans. Edward Lummis (Lexington, KY: American Theological Library Association, 1908).

5 Marcionism originated with Marcion of Sinope around AD 144. Marcion taught that Jesus was the Savior sent by God and that Paul was his chief apostle. However, Marcion rejected the Old Testament because he viewed the vindictive God of the Old Testament and the loving God of the New Testament as irreconcilable. On Marcion, see Marcion und seine kirchengeschichtliche Wirkung, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, ed. Gerhard May and Katharina Greschat (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2002); and the classic work by Adolf von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960); Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God, trans. John E. Steely and Lyle D. Bierma, 2d ed. (Durham, NC: Labyrinth, 1990).

6 Scholars in England and on the Continent widely interacted with Bauer’s work following its original publication. However, Bauer’s work was rarely discussed in America until after its English translation appeared almost forty years later. Since then, it has become virtually to discuss the origins of Christianity with reference to Bauer’s name. For reactions to Bauer’s work between the original German edition and its English translation, see Georg Strecker, “Appendix 2: The Reception of the Book,” in Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy, 286–316.

7 Arnold Ehrhardt, “Christianity before the Apostles’ Creed,” HTR 55 (1962): 73–119; James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester, Trajectories through Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971); Helmut Koester, “Gnomai Diaphoroi: The Origin and Nature of Diversification in the History of Early Christianity,” HTR 58 (1965): 279–318 (repr. in Robinson and Koester, Trajectories through Early Christianity, chap. 4); idem, “Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels,” HTR 73 (1980): 105–30; James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, 2d ed. (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990); Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (New York: Random House, 2003); and Einar Thomassen, “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Second-Century Rome,” HTR 97 (2004): 241–56.

8 Henry E. W. Turner, The Pattern of Christian Truth: A Study in the Relations Between Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1954); Flora, “Critical Analysis”; I. Howard Marshall, “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earlier Christianity,” Them 2 (1976): 5–14; Brice L. Martin, “Some Reflections on the Unity of the New Testament,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 8 (1979): 143–52; James McCue, “Orthodoxy and Heresy: Walter Bauer and the Valentinians,” VC 33 (1979): 118–30; Thomas A. Robinson, The Bauer Thesis Examined: The Geography of Heresy in the Early Christian Church (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1988); Arland J. Hultgren, The Rise of Normative Christianity (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994); Andreas J. Köstenberger, “Diversity and Unity in the New Testament,” in Biblical Theology: Retrospect and Prospect, ed. Scott J. Hafemann (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002), 144–58; Ivor J. Davidson, The Birth of the Church: From Jesus to Constantine, A.D. 30–312, Baker History of the Church 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004); and Birger A. Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt (New York: T&T Clark, 2004).

9 For the following survey see especially Strecker, “Reception of the Book,” 286–316; and Daniel J. Harrington, “The Reception of Walter Bauer’s Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity during the Last Decade,” HTR 73 (1980): 289–98.

10 F. L. Cross, ed., “Bultmann, Rudolf,” ODCC 1:250.

11 Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament , trans. Kendrick Grobel (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955), 2:135 (emphasis original).

12 Ibid., 2:137–38.

13 Ibid., 2:137.

14 Ehrhardt, “Christianity before the Apostles’ Creed.”

15 Ibid., 93.

16 Koester, “Gnomai Diaphoroi.”

17 Robinson and Koester, Trajectories, 270.

18 Concerning Robinson’s and Koester’s “newly” coined term, I. Howard Marshall rightly states, “[Their use of the label] ‘trajectories’ to give expression of this kind of approach . . . is simply a new invention to describe a concept of which scholars have long been conscious” (“Orthodoxy and Heresy,” 6–7).

19 Koester made a similar argument ten years later in “Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels” (HTR 73 [1980]: 105–30). He suggested that four apocryphal gospels (The Synoptic Sayings Source, The Gospel of Thomas, the Unknown Gospel of Papyrus Egerton 2