Margaret Barker And Rancor In The Early Church

[urroner]

I am reading Margaret Barker's "The Revelation of Jesus Christ" and have find it very interesting and thought provoking.  I have found all of her writings like that.

 

I've only read about the first 100 or so pages and there is a theme that I think she is trying to get across.  I have heard about it in the past, but never thought it was as bad was she was making it out to be.  Maybe I'm just reading it wrong.

 

It seems that many of the early Apostles who identified themselves as Hebrew Christians, such as John, Peter and James the Righteous, had some pretty big problems with what Paul was teaching those whom he help convert.  It seemed that Paul also had problems with the rigidness of the Hebrew Christians.

 

If I have read the book correctly so far, it seems that John didn't write the whole book of Revelations, rather, he provided the introduction to the book and then the rest was kind of like an abridgement of many earlier prophetic writing, particularly pre-Christians and tying them all together with the events happening at his time and the return of the Lord.

 

When Paul returned from his first mission, he had a rather chilly reception by the Church leadership there.  They were not happy with what he had been teaching to the Greeks and lnon-Jewish Barbarians.  (Note: I love how the word Barbarian came to be.)  He had more or less informed them that they didn't need to live the Law of Moses, while the Pillars of Jerusalem had been saying that they needed to do so.

 

p97

 

Few details survive of the early years of Christianity in Asia Minor and what there are suggest conflict between Paul and another group.  His early missionary work in Galatia in the south was dogged by opposition for the people whom Luke calls Jews (Acts 13:50; 14:19).  Paul's letter to the Galatians, however, shows they were not Jews but Hebrew Christians, 'men from James;, who did not like what Paul was preaching about freedom from the Law of Moses.  He told his Galatian converts how he had resisted the demands of the Hebrew Christians when they insisted that the Law be kept (Gal. l2:11-12).  Pauls was very conscious that the Jerusalem church did not accept im as a genuine apostle; what he taught was suspect (Gal. 1.111-12; 2 Cor 11:21-22).

 

It seemed that those who opposed Paul, Luked called them Jews, but they were probably Hebrew Christians, were going out among those who he had converted and these people were convincing the new converts they needed to follow the law of Moses.

 

The conversation became interesting then.  Paul called Ephesus, where there were many Hebrew Christians, a place of "many enemies" and where he had "fought with beasts."  He warned his flock about fierce wolves seeking to destroy the flock and who were these fierce wolves, why they were the leaders down in Jerusalem, Peter, James the Righteous, and John.

 

The Hebrew Christians in Asia ,
 

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They kept the Law in all it aspects, they revered angels, visions, and revealed knowledge which they called wisdom, they placed great empahsis on their calendar and they adopted an ascetic and celibate lifestyle, expelling those who did not keep to the rules.

And to encourage love and harmony between the groups, loving names were thrown between the two groups.  Paul was called the Great Satan, and one of his converts, Lydia, was call Jezabel.

 

The questions I have are several.

1. I think this skirmish really happened in the early Christian Church.

2. What did the early Church do to overcome such hostility within it or was this something solved by time?

If there was such a faction going on between Paul and his converts and they Pillars of Jerusalem and the Hebrew Christians, did they ever get along.

 

Shoot, Paul told the Galatians that even if another angel came and taught them a different gospel than he had taught them, these angels were to be rejected.  BTW, this "other angel" would be one or more of the brethren from Jerusalem, including Peter, James the Righteous, and John.

 

Is there a nice concise history out there that explains what happened, why it happened, the consequences of it happening, and how it was solved, if it was ever solved?

 

 

[PtolemyGlenn]

Another angel could imply Heavenly Angels in the scripture you posted.

[David T]

A fun modern parallel would be the 1830s Missouri Mormons under David Whitmer, and Joseph's Ohio/Kirtland Mormons. At times, it seemed very much like two distinct Churches, and some significant rancor between the two leadership factions.

Edited January 29, 2014 by David T

[mfbukowski]

I am not a historian nor a scholar, but I do have a little philosophy training under my belt.  There are some even today who think that Paul destroyed Christianity and that indeed is where the apostasy began.

 

In my opinion, Paul was the "creator" of Christianity in the sense of creating a unified way of seeing the teachings of Jesus and making them into theology.  Yes, the other were Jesus' followers and personally closer to him, and probably actually knew his teachings better, but it was Paul as a philosopher- for better or worse- who hammered it all into a theology of redemption.

 

Of course a lot of what is attributed to Paul was probably not written by him, but still whoever wrote those books was, in my opinion, inspired and clearly guided by the Holy Spirit.  I think Paul saw it all quite differently than the others at Jerusalem, and that he was appointed by God to put it all together.

[teddyaware]

I very much appreciate the work of Margaret Barker, but I think her assumption that Paul was "the great Satan," and Lydia to be the infamous Jezable of the Book of Revelation is pure conjecture on her part. The following selection from Peter's second epistle clearly indicates Paul was a beloved and respected fellow laborer of Peter's.

14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being bled away withthe error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. (2 Peter 3)

Edited January 30, 2014 by teddyaware

[bluebell]

I very much appreciate the work of Margaret Barker, but I think her assumption that Paul was "the great Satan," and Lydia to be the infamous Jezable of the Book of Revelation is pure conjecture on her part. The following selection from Peter's second epistle clearly indicates Paul was a beloved and respected fellow laborer of Peter's.

14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being bled away withthe error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. (2 Peter 3)

Since Barker is for sure aware of those verses in 2 Peter, it would be interesting to know how she reconciles her conclusions with that bit of evidence.

[Nevo]

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Edited October 1, 2014 by Nevo

[teddyaware]

My guess is that, like most scholars, Barker doesn't think Peter wrote 2 Peter.

Scholarly intuition is a strange and  powerful thing. A scholar has an exciting eureka moment, a euphoria producing epiphany in the midst of his scholarly investigations. In that epiphanic moment the intuitive thought hits the scholar with great power, as if the heavens parted and a angel of light, descended from heaven, speaks forth revelatory truth carried from the very throne of God Himself. They love the thought, they delight in the thought and it all fits just so perfectly within their preconceived scholarly notions. But in the end it's not a revelation from God but just a hunch, and hasty actions based on mere human hunches have been one of the major banes on human existence.  

Edited January 30, 2014 by teddyaware

[Nevo]

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Edited October 1, 2014 by Nevo

[rameumptom]

Peter didn't write his epistles.  They were attributed to him later.

 

The early Christian Jews believed themselves to just be another sect of Judaism.  Note that the apostles still attended the temple, and even had Paul present himself there on his return from his last missionary journey.

 

I believe there were huge schisms in the early years of the Church. However, as Jews generally rejected Christ, and Gentiles were embracing him, the Church was swept up in a tidal wave, which pushed things into Paul's favor.  Within the first century of proselyting, the Church almost fully became Gentile Christian, with few Jews remaining in it, in comparison.  Greek bishops quickly replaced Jewish apostles, and then fought among themselves over doctrine (Trinity, duality of Jesus, etc). 

 

The New Testament makes more sense when we understand that Paul only wrote half his letters, and the others were attributed to him later, and so it is with most of the other epistles in the NT.  The real authors may have known the apostles, but each had his own agenda to push in writing.