Ehrman

 

1. The Internecine Struggles of Early Christianity

Arguably the most significant study of early Christianity in modern times is Walter Bauer’s 1934 classic, Rechtglaübigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum.[i] The book has forced a rethinking of the nature of ideological disputes in Christian antiquity, as even scholars not persuaded by Bauer’s view have had to contend with it. Bauer’s thesis is that, contrary to the traditional claims of Christian apologists, “orthodoxy” was not an original and universally dominant form of Christianity in the second and third centuries, with “heresy” (in its multiple configurations) a distant and derivative second. Instead, early Christianity comprised a number of competing forms of belief and practice, one of which eventually attained dominance for a variety of social, economic, and political reasons. The victorious “orthodoxy” then rewrote the history of the church in the light of its final triumph. This orthodoxy was the form of the religion embraced by the faithful in Rome.

While many of the details remain in serious dispute, and demurrals appear to be on the rise, Bauer’s overarching conception continues to exert a wide influence, as does his insistence on the centrality of these ideological disputes to the early history of Christianity.[ii] What, though, do they have to do with the MS tradition of the NT?