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Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Contexts: Reconsidering the Bauer Thesis
Eighty years ago, Walter Bauer promulgated a bold and provocative thesis about early Christianity. He argued that many forms of Christianity started the race, but one competitor pushed aside the others, until this powerful "orthodox" version won the day. The victors re-wrote history, marginalizing all other perspectives and silencing their voices, even though the alternatives possessed equal right to the title of normative Christianity. Bauer's influence still casts a long shadow on early Christian scholarship. Were heretical movements the original forms of Christianity? Did the heretics outnumber the orthodox? Did orthodox heresiologists accurately portray their opponents? And more fundamentally, how can one make any objective distinction between "heresy" and "orthodoxy"? Is such labeling merely the product of socially situated power? Did numerous, valid forms of Christianity exist without any validating norms of Christianity? This collection of essays, each written by a relevant authority, tackles such questions with scholarly acumen and careful attention to historical, cultural-geographical, and socio-rhetorical detail. Although recognizing the importance of Bauer's critical insights, innovative methodologies, and fruitful suggestions, the contributors expose numerous claims of the Bauer thesis (in both original and recent manifestations) that fall short of the historical evidence.
- GenresChurch History
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 30, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 2, 2015
The Bauer Thesis is an undergirding hypothesis running through the minds of individuals worldwide, but especially in the western world. It has been popularized on a large scale by scholars such as Bart D. Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, and Karen King. In fact, the Bauer Thesis is so widespread that it even witnesses some acknowledging support among laity and leadership in the Christian church. Still, the majority of individuals are familiar with the Bauer Thesis without even knowing it. So, what is the Bauer Thesis? The Bauer Thesis is a theory of Christian origins developed by the prolific intellectual voice of German scholar Walter Bauer. In essence, as Bauer peered over the landscape of early Christianity he saw a chasm of diversity with many forms of Christian orthodoxy and heresy. Bauer argued that the existence of a central Christian orthodoxy was nowhere to be found, rather with the superior influence of the Roman church, what we know today as Christianity is merely the outpouring of the victory of one form of Christianity over many others.
Many challenges have been directed towards the claims of the Bauer Thesis and its wide-range of scholarly support. Most recently, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Context: Reconsidering the Bauer Thesis edited by Paul A. Hartog (Pickwick, 2015) seeks to reevaluate the grounds for Bauer’s assessment of early Christianity through the interdisciplinary effort of both New Testament and Patristic studies. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Context has brought together specialists from both fields of study to reexamine the Bauer Thesis “by taking a fresh look at orthodoxy and heresy, unity and diversity, theology and ideology, and rhetoric and polemic within early Christian context” (p. 4-5).
The essays are rich with content, “supplemented by post-Bauer discoveries and refined by post-Bauer scholarship, [and] reveal new insights through careful attention to historical detail and geographical particularity” (p. 5). If the reader is unfamiliar with Walter Bauer and his contribution to biblical scholarship, the introduction by Hartog and the first chapter by Rodney J. Decker has provided an excellent overview of the Bauer and the Bauer Thesis in general. Decker also provides an annotated list of scholarly contention with the Bauer Thesis. These two chapters work well in orienting the reader in the right direction. While all ten essays are collectively beneficial in their own respect, some sure highlights for the reader will include an essay by William Varner titled “Baur to Bauer and Beyond: Early Jewish Christianity and Modern Scholarship,” and an essay by Bryan M. Litfin titled “Apostolic Tradition and the Rule of Faith in Light of the Bauer Thesis.”
The Bauer Thesis has proven itself to be a lasting plague upon the conversations that surround early Christianity. Despite dozens upon dozens of critiques directed at Bauer and the growing number of contemporary proponents to the Bauer Thesis, the conversation shows little signs of slowing down in the near future. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Context: Reconsidering the Bauer Thesis edited by Paul A. Hartog helpfully brings together an interdisciplinary team of scholars unified in the effort of honest discussion about the landscape of early Christianity. If you are looking for an up-to-date engagement with one of the most important and widespread theories related to both New Testament and Patristic studies, then Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Context will provide you with a wealth interaction that is certain to keep your appetite under control.
I received a review copy of these books in exchange for and honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
Many challenges have been directed towards the claims of the Bauer Thesis and its wide-range of scholarly support. Most recently, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Context: Reconsidering the Bauer Thesis edited by Paul A. Hartog (Pickwick, 2015) seeks to reevaluate the grounds for Bauer’s assessment of early Christianity through the interdisciplinary effort of both New Testament and Patristic studies. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Context has brought together specialists from both fields of study to reexamine the Bauer Thesis “by taking a fresh look at orthodoxy and heresy, unity and diversity, theology and ideology, and rhetoric and polemic within early Christian context” (p. 4-5).
The essays are rich with content, “supplemented by post-Bauer discoveries and refined by post-Bauer scholarship, [and] reveal new insights through careful attention to historical detail and geographical particularity” (p. 5). If the reader is unfamiliar with Walter Bauer and his contribution to biblical scholarship, the introduction by Hartog and the first chapter by Rodney J. Decker has provided an excellent overview of the Bauer and the Bauer Thesis in general. Decker also provides an annotated list of scholarly contention with the Bauer Thesis. These two chapters work well in orienting the reader in the right direction. While all ten essays are collectively beneficial in their own respect, some sure highlights for the reader will include an essay by William Varner titled “Baur to Bauer and Beyond: Early Jewish Christianity and Modern Scholarship,” and an essay by Bryan M. Litfin titled “Apostolic Tradition and the Rule of Faith in Light of the Bauer Thesis.”
The Bauer Thesis has proven itself to be a lasting plague upon the conversations that surround early Christianity. Despite dozens upon dozens of critiques directed at Bauer and the growing number of contemporary proponents to the Bauer Thesis, the conversation shows little signs of slowing down in the near future. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Context: Reconsidering the Bauer Thesis edited by Paul A. Hartog helpfully brings together an interdisciplinary team of scholars unified in the effort of honest discussion about the landscape of early Christianity. If you are looking for an up-to-date engagement with one of the most important and widespread theories related to both New Testament and Patristic studies, then Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Context will provide you with a wealth interaction that is certain to keep your appetite under control.
I received a review copy of these books in exchange for and honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
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October 31, 2015The list of beneficial and informative books edited by Dr. Paul Hartog continues to grow. Hartog, a trained patristics scholar, has compiled ten chapters along with eight other New Testament and church history scholars, to examine the long-standing liberal thesis of Walter Bauer (1877-1960). The book is extremely beneficial to believers today because Bauer’s thesis, which first appeared in German in 1934 and in English in 1971, has been eagerly accepted and promoted by contemporary liberal scholars such as Bart Ehrman (12 books are referenced since 2000), and by popular writers such as Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code). As a note, the book was dedicated to the late Rodney Decker, long-time New Testament scholar at Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarks Summit, PA, who also wrote the first chapter on the overview of Bauer’s thesis, which was completed just prior to his untimely death.
The Bauer thesis (which is repeated several times in more erudite manner in the book: e.g. pages 11, 115, 183, 198, 213, 215, 223, 242) is that in the first and second centuries there were many forms of Christianity which later would be called either orthodox or heretical, and that what is today called orthodox is not the true one but rather was considered a heresy in the first century. His thesis is also that it was the Roman church [or churches] that solidified the heresy and forced it upon all other churches, eventually claiming its version to be the only orthodox Christianity. Of course, this leaves open the view that other (apocryphal and pseudepigraphal) books ought to have more authority than New Testament canonical books, and that Christianity as we know it is a hoax foisted upon the world over the last 2000 years. This view is widely accepted today by unknowing “believers,” or as Glen Thompson wrote, it has become “widespread in our post-modern and post-post-modern times” (p. 217). Among the many scholarly rebuttals offered by the authors of this book, Bryan Litfin writes, “That being said, the eighty years since the 1934 publication of Orhtodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity have not been kind to Professor Bauer. Reviewers have repeatedly suggested the author ignored evidence that ran counter to his thesis, engaged in special pleading on behalf of the ‘heretics,’ and relied far too much on arguments from silence to buttress his points. Yet beyond such methodological critiques, the very infrastructure of Bauer’s argument has been dismantled piece by piece” (p. 141-142). In the first chapter of this book alone, Decker reviewed 14 scholarly works that have disproved Bauer since he published his work in 1934. In addition, Hartog reviews at length the early rebuttal of Bauer by Walther Völker, a fellow German historian, in 1935, who wrote, “The author [Bauer] arrives at these astonishing conclusions by repeated use of the arguments from silence, by bold combinations of unrelated passages, by unprovable conjectures which themselves are reused as a precarious foundation for further conjectures, by inferences drawn from later periods, and finally by the arrangement of all isolated facts into the schema orthodoxy/heresy, whereby the variegated historical events are robbed of the full richness of their causes and motivations” (p. 236-237).
The great value of a book like this is that the average reader, who does not and cannot read the ton of material related to a subject like this, can glean from those who spend countless hours reading in his place. Since this issue will continue to grow and capture the minds of an unbelieving world already bent on the destruction of Christian orthodoxy, the time spent reading the critiques and conclusions drawn in these chapters will greatly benefit anyone who is willing to do it.
Read more book reviews on my website
The Bauer thesis (which is repeated several times in more erudite manner in the book: e.g. pages 11, 115, 183, 198, 213, 215, 223, 242) is that in the first and second centuries there were many forms of Christianity which later would be called either orthodox or heretical, and that what is today called orthodox is not the true one but rather was considered a heresy in the first century. His thesis is also that it was the Roman church [or churches] that solidified the heresy and forced it upon all other churches, eventually claiming its version to be the only orthodox Christianity. Of course, this leaves open the view that other (apocryphal and pseudepigraphal) books ought to have more authority than New Testament canonical books, and that Christianity as we know it is a hoax foisted upon the world over the last 2000 years. This view is widely accepted today by unknowing “believers,” or as Glen Thompson wrote, it has become “widespread in our post-modern and post-post-modern times” (p. 217). Among the many scholarly rebuttals offered by the authors of this book, Bryan Litfin writes, “That being said, the eighty years since the 1934 publication of Orhtodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity have not been kind to Professor Bauer. Reviewers have repeatedly suggested the author ignored evidence that ran counter to his thesis, engaged in special pleading on behalf of the ‘heretics,’ and relied far too much on arguments from silence to buttress his points. Yet beyond such methodological critiques, the very infrastructure of Bauer’s argument has been dismantled piece by piece” (p. 141-142). In the first chapter of this book alone, Decker reviewed 14 scholarly works that have disproved Bauer since he published his work in 1934. In addition, Hartog reviews at length the early rebuttal of Bauer by Walther Völker, a fellow German historian, in 1935, who wrote, “The author [Bauer] arrives at these astonishing conclusions by repeated use of the arguments from silence, by bold combinations of unrelated passages, by unprovable conjectures which themselves are reused as a precarious foundation for further conjectures, by inferences drawn from later periods, and finally by the arrangement of all isolated facts into the schema orthodoxy/heresy, whereby the variegated historical events are robbed of the full richness of their causes and motivations” (p. 236-237).
The great value of a book like this is that the average reader, who does not and cannot read the ton of material related to a subject like this, can glean from those who spend countless hours reading in his place. Since this issue will continue to grow and capture the minds of an unbelieving world already bent on the destruction of Christian orthodoxy, the time spent reading the critiques and conclusions drawn in these chapters will greatly benefit anyone who is willing to do it.
Read more book reviews on my website
May 1, 2023
A good follow up to reading Walter Bauer and getting acquainted with the various critiques that have been offered about his view of Christian history.
April 7, 2015
I found this book to be an excellent primer to understanding the issue with development of orthodoxy and heresy in early context. Besides the fact that there are many scholars who approach the issues in a professional manner, I found some great insights into the Gnosticism and New Prophesy. One of the most startling statements is that glossolalia persisted inside the church (in the North African church) well beyond the age of the apostles.
Even though, I have heard people talk about how this would debunk some of the theories put forth by Bart Erhman, I find that treatment of the Erhman's ideas are only tangential mentioned and there is little engagement of the theories put forth by Erhman. That aside, the book gets 5 stars from me for readability, explanation of Bauer theory and why it is relevant today, the insights into New Prophesy, and the importance of the Gnostic gospels discovery during mid XXth century.
Even though, I have heard people talk about how this would debunk some of the theories put forth by Bart Erhman, I find that treatment of the Erhman's ideas are only tangential mentioned and there is little engagement of the theories put forth by Erhman. That aside, the book gets 5 stars from me for readability, explanation of Bauer theory and why it is relevant today, the insights into New Prophesy, and the importance of the Gnostic gospels discovery during mid XXth century.
June 17, 2016
The subtitle succinctly captures the topic of this work ("Reconsidering the Bauer Thesis"). The Bauer Thesis has become the primary model of understanding the development of early Christianity. In fact it is in vogue to say "development of early christianities." This work challenges that prevalent theory with several articles from leading historians of New Testament and Early Christianity. Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels popularized the Bauer Thesis and this work attempts to counter their theories. I recommend this book for anyone interested in History of Early Christianity.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews