User:Jaredscribe/Church history
The Great commission given to the eleven disciples, who thereby become apostles: "Make disciples of all nations ... and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you".
Nevertheless, "If Paul had converted in Christianity's second century rather than its first, he would have been declared a heretic," according to many bible scholars.
"Paul the Pharisee, writing before the destruction of Jerusalem and before the predominance of gentiles in the church, had never aligned the Jews with Satan, nor opposed their world of Temple and covenant to God's. He never declared the mission to them closed, nor lost sight of their reacceptance, although he conditioned that acceptance on their conversion to Christ. Finally, he never rejected the practice of Jewish law and ritual by Jewish believers in Christ. To the contrary, it was to the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem that he sends his charity and that of the gentiles among whom he preached, a charity that manifested itself in both material and spiritual terms. The gospels approached all these positions. But above all, they amplified an association Paul had made in order explain to the gentile Christians why they should not observe jewish law: the association between Judaism and the flesh, with all that the flesh stands for ... As the danger of Judaism was amplified, the possibilities for the Jews' redemption and conversion decreased. Christians came to fear rather than admire Jewish followers of Christ who practiced their old law. This fear so changed the world that within little more than a century after Paul's death, his own spiritual itinerary had become suspect. If Paul had converted in Christianity's second century rather than its first, he would have been declared a heretic." (David Nirenberg, 2013,pp.84-85)
"For Jesus's disciples and for Paul, the [dialogue and] struggle with Judaism was both real and specific. Real in that it was part of their lived experience in predominantly Jewish contexts (some of Paul's communities, or ekklesiai, aside []). Specific in that it provided answers to particular questions raised by that lived experience: Given that Jesus was crucified and not enthroned in Jerusalem, how can he be the Jewish Messiah? Should gentiles who worship jesus also practice jewish law as all Jesus's disciples (as Jews) had? Why do some synagogues exclude followers of Jesus from their fellowship, and even persecute them? These questions ceased to be as pressing in the second, third, and fourth centuries, when the Jesus movement had become a vastly gentile church independent of Jews and their synagogues. The jews were by then a twice-defeated people without political power: persecution of the Christians came not from Jerusalem but from Rome. Yet the [discourse concerning] Jewish enmity and the killing carnality of the Jews only grew [louder], driven now not so much by conflict with real Jews, but because it proved ever more generally useful for thinking about God, the world, and the nature of the texts and powers that mediate between them." (Nirenberg, 2013, p 86)
Gospel of John's portrayal of Thomas as a stubborn doubter who refuses to believe in the corporeality of the risen christ, is possibly an attack on the Gospel of Thomas, which was found in 1945 Jabl al-Tarif.
Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Acts of Paul and Thecla: grant women a public spiritual authority denied by texts like 1 Timothy.
The Didache, unlike the book of Acts, preached a positive attitude toward observance of ritual law: "For if you can bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect, but if you cannot, do what you can." (6:2)