Jesus Before Constantine: The Church, Her Beliefs, and Her Apologetics

by Doug E. Taylor, Gary R. Habermas (Foreword)

That's now, but what about then? There is much diversity in Christianity today in terms of what constitutes necessary core beliefs, but what can we know about the earliest Christianity? Until the major councils began in the fourth century, were all who claimed to be Christian considered part of the church, or was there more to it than just claiming a name? Is there evidence for how the church understood core and necessary beliefs prior to Constantine's arrival in history and the Council of Nicea in AD 325? This book examines such questions. Using only those materials that are accepted by most scholars on the subject, whether they are Christian or not, and focusing on the period from AD 30-250, a picture emerges showing what Christians held as a core belief as well as how flexible they were on this belief. Only after identifying where the church stood in this period can we begin to understand whether others such as Ebionites, Docetists, and Marcionites would have been accepted as Christian. A case is made based on writings from the church, the Nag Hammadi, and a completely secular tool from the twentieth century to find the conclusion to this question.

Genres: Church History

241 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 17, 2020

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a fairly decent book in regard to being well written and understandable, but it's pretty much just the usual apologetics dressed up in new terminology and proposing to use a new method, the root cause analysis, to examine the evidence. There are however, some pretty significant problems with Taylor's use (and misuse) of information to support his case, and selective leaving out of other information that harms it. He also likes to drop fairly big statements and then just move on without offering any substantiation. Without dragging this into a lengthy review, I'll give some examples.

One glaring example of Taylor making a bold statement that he not only completely neglects to substantiate, but which is countered by scores of evidence to the contrary, is when he states, "The resurrection of Jesus was a completely unique event in history. No pre-Pauline resurrection accounts exist." (p.34) There is a plethora of literature that details numerous pre-Pauline resurrection accounts throughout ancient history, some incredibly similar to that of Jesus but much earlier. To suggest Paul's account of the resurrection of a god-man is not only completely unique in history, but the first, borders on absurdity. Taylor continues this odd claim for Christianity itself, claiming, "Christianity appeared unexpectedly with a new focus on human existence giving indication that what was found with the rise of Christianity was something wholly other from any other religion of or before that time." (p.41) Again, not only does Taylor make this sort of bold statement without any attempt to support it, but it flies in the face of the evidence. Christianity was not unexpected at all. In fact, the trend for centuries was that of various Middle Eastern and Levant cultures developing their own versions (or variations) of the dying-resurrecting god-man mythologies. Whether one of these carried primacy, or which one is the "true" version is debated to this day. But what would have actually been unexpected, is if the trend had skipped over the Hebrew community and failed to birth a Hebrew version of the dying-resurrecting god-man mythos. But as would be expected, that trend did continue and the foundation of Christianity was born. And it was not "something wholly other" but followed very well the general themes it shares with the numerous other dying-resurrecting myths that came before it.

Taylor uses a similar reasoning when discussing the hallucination theory for the post-crucifixion appearances of Jesus (p.35). He simply ignores the vast data on the accounts of both mass hallucinations and of something called emotional contagion, whereby numerous historical accounts exist of the transfer of emotion, even more complex psychopathology (i.e., mass hysteria, mass psychogenic illness, etc), between persons sharing similar experiences or believing similar things. These shared emotions can manifest in similar hallucinations born from the same belief seeds, which morph into a unified story of a common hallucination with the same features, which is then written down. Similar psych-sharing is seen in witness testimonies of an actual event, where the initial eye witness experiences reported are more diverse and personal, but as the experiences are shared among the witnesses, they morph into a nearly identical shared experience. Yet Taylor just waves his hand and tells you that it's not a thing, and even suggests that it cannot sufficiently explain Paul's conversion, when in fact Paul's conversion is the type of post-crucifixion appearance that is actually best explained by hallucination theory, outside of it being an actual supernatural event.

Taylor moves on to attempt to show that the Shema could only be understood as supporting the belief in one god; monotheism. As before, he offers no substantiation at all, just assertion. And when one examines the text of the Shema, it does no such thing as declaring that there is only one god. In fact, the Shema is an explicit declaration that there are other gods, which is why it declares, "Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one." This declaration is to contrast Yahweh against all the other gods. It is Yahweh who is their god, not the others. Yahweh is one, not like the multiplicity of the pantheon of other gods. This makes sense when you understand the long history of the Hebrews/Israel going after other gods repeatedly. The Israelites were naturally polytheistic, and it was exhortations like the Shema which commanded them to serve, love, and worship only one god; Yahweh. There is no need to make this distinction in the Shema if Yahweh was literally the only god. But in light of the plurality of gods, it was seen as necessary.

One of Taylor's issues derailing his approach, is the conflation of the first century Jews, who were largely non-Israelite converts to Babylonian Judaism, with the ancient Israelites/Hebrews from the Tanakh. For example, when discussing the Psalms 82 and 89, in an attempt to derive the interpretation he needs, he consults the Babylonian Talmud (p.45) and rabbinic commentary. This is incredibly problematic, because the Psalms were written by the biblical Israelites/Hebrews, a completely different people than 1st century Jews. And the Babylonian Talmud is a composition based on the syncretic religion of Judaism that was developed by the captive Judahites and which blended Babylonian mystery religion and occultism with ancient Torah based practice. After the mass forced conversions of the Idumaeans (Edomites) during the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties, the majority of Jews in Judea were not descendants of Israelites, but were non-Israelite converts compelled to follow the Babylonian religion of Judaism which, after the destruction of the 2nd temple, gave us the Talmud. Consulting the Babylonian Talmud for the proper interpretation of Hebrew scriptures is completely faulty. It would be like having your car mechanic interpret your chest CT results just because he and your radiologist share the same last name and celebrate Christmas.

One thing that's difficult to understand is why Taylor makes statements that are clearly refuted by the texts he uses as support. I don't know if it's intentional in hopes that no one checks, or if it just slipped by him. For instance, he states, "by appealing to the first two chapters of Galatians it was shown that Paul and at least the apostles in Jerusalem were preaching the same gospel message." (p.62). The problem is that Galatians shows precisely the opposite. Galatians chapter 2 reveals that Peter (Cephas) and Paul had some very real differences in the gospel they were preaching, so much so that Paul brags about confronting Peter/Cephas to his face in Jerusalem. (v. 11) While Peter and his group, and Paul and his, both taught the same core message of Christ crucified, they had significant differences in the gospel messages they were teaching. In other words, two differing Christianities. Acts chapter 15 gives us more details behind this Jerusalem meeting (we'll sidestep for now the discrepancies between Paul's and the author of Acts retelling of the events). What becomes immediately clear is that while team Peter and team Paul both taught the same basic Christ, they did in fact teach different gospel messages. And what was the result of this meeting to resolve the differences? They agreed to create a more simple gospel message (essentially a 3rd, or middle, option) for preaching to the nations (vv. 19-21 & 28-29). If Taylor's assertion were correct, there would never have been such a disagreement with a need to meet and hash out their differences in gospel messaging. One must understand as well that this wasn't a friendly meeting, but a heated debate in which Paul saw himself as correct and equal to, or better than, the Jerusalem apostles. In Galatians 2 Paul makes a point to say that the esteemed apostles were nothing to him. (v. 6) This is similar to Paul's assertion in 2 Corinthians 11:5 that he is not the least inferior to the chiefest of apostles. Paul was not a fan of having his gospel message compared to that of Peter and the other apostles. In fact, he so desired to set his apart, and show that he taught his own gospel different than the "super apostles," that he declared that he had not received his gospel from any man or had it taught to him (v. 12). Does any of this, when understood as a complete picture in context, sound like Paul and the apostles in Jerusalem "were preaching the same gospel message" to you? Of course not.

There are numerous other examples, but I'll leave it at what I've provided here as a taste. In short, Taylor's work here can be summed up as repackaged apologetics with an attempt at utilizing a new methodology. But in the end, what permeates this work is carefully selected "proofs" without including the context which would refute the premise, along with an apparent misunderstanding of both key historical points and the biblical texts themselves. One of the most frustrating devices used in this book is the use of the No True Scotsman fallacy. Where the evidence shows a varying gospel message, or a distinct Christianity or Christology in early development, or a clear derivative Christian group offshooting, Taylor simply waves it off by asserting that they weren't real Christians even as they profess Christ. For instance, he stated, "It is a non sequitur that simply claiming the name of Christian without also being anchored on the same gospel message as proclaimed by Paul, inclusive of the Tanakh, made one Christian." (p.69) In other words, in order to try and prove that there was always a single unified gospel message and one cohesive Christianity from the beginning, Taylor points to the Pauline gospel as his orthodox litmus test to qualify as the "true" gospel message and "true" Christianity, thereby creating an argument that can never really be falsified or shown erroneous because it requires the a priori exclusion of any aberrant non-Pauline gospel messages as being "not real" gospel messages, thereby creating its own conditions for supporting itself without justification. It's basically just circular reasoning. As such, in the end while Taylor does manage to show that by the early 2nd century, a unified Christianity (or really, Paulianity) began to coalesce as orthodoxy, he does not succeed in defending the primary thesis of his work in this book, that there always was from day one, a single unified gospel message and single unified Christianity.