Gnosticism did not exist

[Politesse]

Somebody is mistaken. Who is it likely to be?

What do you mean? Mistaken about what?

What you said: "what the "open encyclopedia" says on the subject conflicts with what Carrier claims "everyone" believes."

If there is a conflict, there is a contradiction. If one is right, the other must be wrong

Which do you suppose? It seems strange to me that you would be citing Wikipedia as inherently and obviously more authoritative than a scholar, but also strange to attack the source that you yourself brought into the discussion, presumably because you thought it represented your viewpoint. Which odd thing are you trying to imply, and why not just state it so as not to cause unnecessary confusion twice?

I do not see wikipedia as a source of information about subjects, generally speaking, it is too easy to sabotage and seldom truly reviewed. But in this case, I think it would be strange if the way Wikipedia represented the issue were at odds with what is supposedly the majority consensus of scholars; if the information on the open encyclopedia is incomplete, wouldn't you expect it to hie toward the general consensus, whatever that is?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

But researchers do this all the time. The put what looks like random noise and then find metrics to categorise it, to make sense of it. Early Christianity was a godawful mess of various ideas and beliefs. All they agreed on is that it's important that everybody had the correct faith. But what that correct faith was, was all over the place.

Perhaps it's better to talk of flavours of Christianity, based on the regional pagan traditions Christianity blended with as it spread? Because pagan gnosis most definitely was a thing, especially in ancient Egypt. Christianity was arguably created in Alexandria. So it must have had an impact.

It's not just early christianity that was diverse. Early christianity didn't just plop into men's minds. Any disconnect with anything else we call "religious" is at best academic, fabricated and artificial. When Carrier says 'they have no text' he knows this applies to every religion that ever existed.

But sure, it's our instinctive communicative duty to categorize and understand. We do pretty good on the categorizing, not so good on the understanding.

 

[DBT]

What you said: "what the "open encyclopedia" says on the subject conflicts with what Carrier claims "everyone" believes."

If there is a conflict, there is a contradiction. If one is right, the other must be wrong

Which do you suppose? It seems strange to me that you would be citing Wikipedia as inherently and obviously more authoritative than a scholar, but also strange to attack the source that you yourself brought into the discussion, presumably because you thought it represented your viewpoint. Which odd thing are you trying to imply, and why not just state it so as not to cause unnecessary confusion twice?

I do not see wikipedia as a source of information about subjects, generally speaking, it is too easy to sabotage and seldom truly reviewed. But in this case, I think it would be strange if the way Wikipedia represented the issue were at odds with what is supposedly the majority consensus of scholars; if the information on the open encyclopedia is incomplete, wouldn't you expect it to hie toward the general consensus, whatever that is?

For a start, I did not quote from Wikipedia. Nor did I suggest that Wikipedia is more authoritative.

You miss the point and focus on a strawman. I'll leave it there, I'm out of patience.

 

[ruby sparks]

For a start, I did not quote from Wikipedia.

You actually quoted a theology scholar, a Professor of Early Church History with a special interest in Gnosticism.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I agree with this. It was clear to me from my first readings of Gnostic texts fifty years ago that it was a hodge-podge term covering a large amount of ground, and that it was not useful to talk about different Gnostic "groups." The Nag Hammadi library show us, by its very existence, that Gnostics were very catholic (small "c") in their tastes of inspirational texts. It's still a useful term however.

If one discerns "Gnostic" elements in the Gospel of John for instance, it doesn't therefore mean that there is no such thing as Gnosticism, as Carrier seems to argue.

Well, exactly. Carrier and Seminar are actually making somewhat different points. Carrier seems to be trying to imply that the phenomenon of Gnosticism was somehow fabricated by scholars, which fits into the standard existentialistic atheist polemics against the early church generally. But the Seminar has never argued that the theologies contained within gnostic-coded texts - hierarchical heavens, ascension to a Neo-Platonic godhead, the existence of perfidious archontai or demiurgoi hiding the true god from humanity, etc.- themselves never existed at all. What they are saying is that they were not, in their own time, considered heretical. Rather they were Christianity, full stop, to the communities that kept them.

Thank-you. Well said.

With much less communiction between cells, it was easy for a rich plurality of beliefs and practices to flourish in the first three centuries of the church, and we have manifold evidence for this. This has been a major theme in Patristics since the late 80s, before the Nag Hammadi library had even come to widespread popular attention (it is the most important, but not by any means our only window into early church esoterica). What scholars are trying to discourage (and have been doing for decades now) is trying to tamp down the popular press imaginary of a brave renegade sect of Gnostics fighting back against the ingrained power of the Christian orthodoxy, during a time period where by all means historians can see, there was no such orthodoxy to fight against, and your local bishop was likely your only means of accessing "correct" doctrine.

Again, well said.

This story is indeed one you see printed in popular works and discussed over liberal coffeeshop tables. But like many historical narratives, that portrayal of the past is more about the needs of the political present than historical reality. It was never the scholarly consensus. It is a romantic trope that liberal Christians find comfort in referring to, as it makes their own heterodoxy more normalized and implies deep roots, beating the orthodoxists at their own game by claiming a deeper and truer manifestation of the faith than what utimately triumphed. No doubt, this is one of the reasons Carrier has special ire for it; atheist activists have always strongly preferred debating with conservatives; there's too much homework involved with trying to debate a Progressive Christian, and perhaps more to fear rhetorically from people whose faith seems more overtly rational or at least harder to pin down and argue against. Carrier is a smart man and I do not here impugn his credentials, but we are all compromised by our beliefs and political projects one way or anohter, and I find his grandstanding habits somewhat irritating after a while.

Again, well said.

In my own opinion, there isn't really such a thing as an expert on the 2nd-3rd century church, not for lack of interest and study but simply for lack of historical records to describe it. There is simply too much missing information for such an expertise to exist in the present. If only we had time traveling ethnographers to go back and peek under the roof of the ancient house churches to see what is going on!

Why would it have been any different then than it is today?

 

[DBT]

For a start, I did not quote from Wikipedia.

You actually quoted a theology scholar, a Professor of Early Church History with a special interest in Gnosticism.

Was the information given on the history of Gnosticism false, mistaken or deceptive? I have read different sources saying much the same thing. Basically, that the elements of Gnosticism emerged quite early, without an organized group identifying themselves as 'Gnostics.'

 

[ruby sparks]

I have read different sources saying much the same thing. Basically, that the elements of Gnosticism emerged quite early, without an organized group identifying themselves as 'Gnostics.'

I think that is the case, but I'm not an expert.

I heard reports that a team called Gnostic Rovers won the Christianity League Western Division 8 years running in the 2nd C CE, which would indicate some sort of self-identifying group, but I'm not sure how reliable those reports were.

Seriously though, I don't know, but I do know that you weren't quoting wikipedia.

 

[DrZoidberg]

But researchers do this all the time. The put what looks like random noise and then find metrics to categorise it, to make sense of it. Early Christianity was a godawful mess of various ideas and beliefs. All they agreed on is that it's important that everybody had the correct faith. But what that correct faith was, was all over the place.

Perhaps it's better to talk of flavours of Christianity, based on the regional pagan traditions Christianity blended with as it spread? Because pagan gnosis most definitely was a thing, especially in ancient Egypt. Christianity was arguably created in Alexandria. So it must have had an impact.

It's not just early christianity that was diverse. Early christianity didn't just plop into men's minds. Any disconnect with anything else we call "religious" is at best academic, fabricated and artificial. When Carrier says 'they have no text' he knows this applies to every religion that ever existed.

But sure, it's our instinctive communicative duty to categorize and understand. We do pretty good on the categorizing, not so good on the understanding.

Yeah, that's a good point. Any categorisation has to remove information. A model of reality that's 1:1 is worthless. Any model of reality to be understood has to be a gross simplification. So we need to remove the less valuable information. But what information to remove? It'll by necessity create the illusion of sharp dileneations between categories, when we all know reality is mostly a shades of grey mess.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

But researchers do this all the time. The put what looks like random noise and then find metrics to categorise it, to make sense of it. Early Christianity was a godawful mess of various ideas and beliefs. All they agreed on is that it's important that everybody had the correct faith. But what that correct faith was, was all over the place.

Perhaps it's better to talk of flavours of Christianity, based on the regional pagan traditions Christianity blended with as it spread? Because pagan gnosis most definitely was a thing, especially in ancient Egypt. Christianity was arguably created in Alexandria. So it must have had an impact.

It's not just early christianity that was diverse. Early christianity didn't just plop into men's minds. Any disconnect with anything else we call "religious" is at best academic, fabricated and artificial. When Carrier says 'they have no text' he knows this applies to every religion that ever existed.

But sure, it's our instinctive communicative duty to categorize and understand. We do pretty good on the categorizing, not so good on the understanding.

Yeah, that's a good point. Any categorisation has to remove information. A model of reality that's 1:1 is worthless. Any model of reality to be understood has to be a gross simplification. So we need to remove the less valuable information. But what information to remove? It'll by necessity create the illusion of sharp dileneations between categories, when we all know reality is mostly a shades of grey mess.

Exactly. We get it. Lets call it Quantum Religion.