Category Archives: Early Christian History

Gorman Paul and John in Harmony

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Michael J. Gorman, Paul and John in Harmony: A Theological and Historical Exploration (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2026)

The goal of this book, which began as a series of lectures at the Lanier Theological Library, is to explore theological aspects of Christology and discipleship in St. John’s Gospel and 1 John that are in harmony with the undisputed Pauline letters (Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon) and to begin the historical task of reevaluating the relationship between St. John and St. Paul.

Gorman has structured this book in six chapters, a brief epilogue, a bibliography, and three indices: one of subjects, another of modern authors, and one of Scripture.  

In the first chapter (“Why This? Why Now?,” 1–16), Gorman lays out the objective for this book and places his volume within the scholarly conversation, especially concerning the relationship of St. John to St. Paul. 

Chapter 2 (“Paul, John, and Jesus: Christology, and Its Implications for Discipleship” 17–60) explores the significant and similar linguistic, structural, and theological of Philippians 2:6–11 and John 13:1–20: both contain “a two-dimensional story of Christology/soteriology . . . and of participatory discipleship, or spirituality . . .”; both are stories “about God, about incarnation, and about divine self-revelation”; both are stories “of Christ’s divine vulnerability, humility, downward mobility, and self-enslavement followed by exaltation”; both are stories “of self-giving love”; and both are paradoxical in that they feature “Christ’s free choice and obedience.” 

In chapter three (Paul, John, and Participation in Christ: Spirituality, and Its Roots in Christology I: Overview,” 61–86), Gorman examines the similar locative and residential rhetoric in St. John’s Gospel and the Pauline letters, namely that Christians reside in Jesus and in God. Thus, he looks at the Greek verbs menō, “to remain,” and oikeō, “dwell,” and the prepositions en, “in,” and meta, “with,” in St. John’s Gospel and 1 John as well as the prepositions en, “in,” and syn, “with,” the latter of which is often found attached to certain verbs in St. Paul’s letters. 

Chapter 4 (“Paul, John, and Participation in Christ: Spirituality, and Its Roots in Christology II: Four Common Aspects of Their Locative Language,” 87–128) takes the observations from the previous chapter and considers the locative and residential rhetoric of St. John and St. Paul more in depth. He argues that the use of such rhetoric by both authors is mutual, identity-defining, Trinitarian, active, and transformative. In particular, the mutual and intimate indwelling that St. John and St. Paul discuss “permits believers to share in” the divine identity of God and to be transformed into the image of the Messiah, which is to become more like God (126). Since God the Father and Son are “on the move, this Godlike Christlikeness is inherently and inevitably missional in character, enabled by the Spirit of the Son and the Father” (126). Nevertheless, there are differences in St. John’s and St. Paul’s locative and residential rhetoric. The former does not talk about the body of the Messiah as St. Paul does, St. John does not speak of being “in the Messiah,” and St. Paul rarely notes that Christians are “in Jesus.” The reason for these differences is that St. John’s Gospel “reflects a time when Jesus was doing his earthly ministry,” while St. Paul was focused on the risen Messiah and Lord (126).  

In chapter 5 (“Prequels and Sequels,” 129–56), Gorman investigates the “prequels” and “sequels” to the Gospel of St. John and the letters of Paul noting that both corpora highlight that the Father sends the Son and the Spirit, that one must believe in Jesus, be in him, and dwell in him, and that both underscore God’s life-giving salvific activity. All these observations serve as the foundation for Gorman’s last chapter and suggestion about the relationship between St. John’s Gospel and St. Paul.  

Chapter 6 (“Similarities and Sources,” 157–80) reviews the genetic question about which New Testament author influenced whom, observing the three ways that scholars have answered this question: (1) each author wrote independent of each other and drew on common sources; (2) St. Paul influenced St. John’s writings, either through his own writings or the tradition associated with him (which is the commonest view) or St. John and his writings influenced St. Paul; and (3) St. Paul’s traditions and writings and Johannine tradition and writings influenced each other. Gorman offers a new proposal: St. John influenced St. Paul. The main reason is that “it makes more sense to think of Paul as translating Johannine narratives and metaphors into new idioms for new situations . . . than it does to think of the author of John taking Pauline words, phrases, metaphors, and narratives and placing them on the lips of Jesus and in his own hands as the Gospel narrator” (167). He provides two ways in which this happened: (1) the soft version: either St. Paul knew of Johannine traditions or an early version of St. John’s Gospel or (2) the hard version: St. Paul knew of St. John’s Gospel “more or less as we have it” (168). Gorman points out that the soft version is not as controversial because even Raymond Brown concluded that some Johannine traditions date between AD 40 and 60. The hard version, however, is contrary to almost all historical-critical scholarship on St. John’s Gospel, that its final form dates to the mid AD 90s. 

Nevertheless, Gorman gives eight reasons to support his proposal. The first is that provided St. Paul knew of John 13–17, with what other parts of John was he familiar? He suggests that it is likely the apostle knew the Gospel was a whole, save for John 21. The second is that an early date for St. John’s Gospel is not out of the realm of possibility because hard evidence for a post AD-70 date is lacking. The third reason is that there is no reason why St. John’s Christology postdates St. Paul’s. The fourth is that St. John’s Gospel may have been composed in the AD 40s. The fifth reason is that if St. John knew and used St. Mark’s Gospel and possibly also St. Matthew’s, then all three Synoptic Gospels possibly date before AD 50. The sixth is that this dating of the Gospels explains several aspects of Pauline theology such as the similarities between St. Paul and St. John, St. Paul’s similarity to St. Mark’s understanding of the cross and discipleship, and St. Paul’s citations of St. Matthew’s and St. Luke’s Gospels [what citations he does not provide]. The seventh reason is that St. Paul’s use of St. John’s Gospel resembles how the author of 1 John uses St. John’s Gospel, too. And, the eighth reason is that St. Paul probably gained access to St. John’s Gospel as it circulated among early Christians. 

Finally, in the last chapter (“A Brief Epilogue,” 181–82), Gorman provides a short summary of Paul and John in Harmony. 

This work is quintessential Gorman: well-written, easy to read, descriptive, precise, filled with summaries of his arguments, and thought provoking. I have noted the similarities between Philippians 2:6–11 and John 13 for years in my own study and preaching and Gorman has convinced me that there is a relationship between St. Paul and St. John’s Gospel. What is more, for the past few years, especially since I read Jonathan Bernier’s Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament (2022) (which I review here); J. A. T. Robinson,Redating the New Testament (1976), and Brant Pitre, The Case for Jesus (2016), I now question the entire scholarly edifice on which the reconstruction of early Christianity is based, especially the dates of the New Testament works (I am in the data collection process of a new introduction to the New Testament that re-examines the dates of the twenty-seven canonical works). Therefore, I welcome Gorman’s new proposal that the best explanation for the similarities between St. Paul and St. John that the former knew and read the latter’s Gospel (save for John 21): Bravo! 

In sum, this is an excellent and important read and I encourage you to get your copy of Paul and John in Harmony today directly from Baker Academic! 

I am grateful for the gratis copy of this book, which in no way influenced by review of it. 

Review of Walton The Lost World of the Prophets

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John H. Walton, The Lost World of the Prophets: Old Testament Prophecy and Apocalyptic Literature in Ancient Context (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic Press, 2025)

Walton’s goal in this book is to demonstrate the most accurate reading, interpretation, and application of the Old Testament Prophets to his ideal reader, which appears to be a modern Western, American evangelical Christian. He accomplishes this aim by helping this reader to (re)discover the “lost world” of the Prophets and their ancient Near Eastern context, which will ensure a reading that is faithful to their original intentions and avoids misunderstanding their messages. 

Walton arranges his book with an introduction, five parts with sixteen chapters in the form of propositions, a conclusion, a section with books for further reading, and two indices: a general index and a Scriptural index. 

In the introduction, Walton lays out this work’s aforementioned goal (which is similar to all the books in his Lost World series), to provide a fresh reading of the Old Testament Prophets informed by the cultural context or the “cultural river” of the ancient Near Eastern world, which is based on “the principle that the Bible is written for us but not to us” (2). In the process, he hopes to guard against the misinterpretation of the Prophets that have plagued American evangelical Christianity, especially since the rise of dispensational premillennialism.

Part 1 (“Ancient Near East”) contains two propositions that focus on the ancient Near Eastern context of prophecy in the Old Testament. The first proposition (“Prophecy Is a Subset of Divination,” 13–19) makes the case that prophecy is a form of ancient Near Eastern divination or the “means by which humans believed they could receive messages or direction from the gods” (13). The reason that divination was important in the ancient Near East is that its inhabitants “felt it was imperative to know what the gods were thinking and doing” and they believed that the “gods communicated with humans through a wide variety of mechanisms” (14). 

In the second proposition (“Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East Manifest Similarities and Differences When Compared to Israel,” 20–32), Walton probes the similarities and dissimilarities between ancient Near Eastern and Biblical prophecy. On the one hand, broadly speaking Biblical prophecy shares with ancient Near Eastern prophecy the notion that God/gods communicate with humans, that they chose special messengers (i.e., prophets) to disclose their actions, and these messages took a similar form: “thus says [the name of the deity] . . .” In short, Israel and other ancient Near Eastern cultures “agreed . . . that the exercise of prophetic speech did not serve to tell the future but indicated how the gods were thinking and what they were doing” (27). On the other hand, Biblical Prophets differed from their ancient Near Eastern counterparts in the length and sophistication of the written divinely received messages, that the latter rarely rebuked monarchs (however, Biblical Prophets often did), that the Biblical Prophets addressed their messages to the masses not just to kings (as in most other ancient Near Eastern cultures), and, most obvious, God’s covenant with Israel undergirded the entire message of the Biblical Prophets, which was not the case with other ancient Near Eastern prophets: “it is primarily the existence of the covenant that makes Israelite prophecy different from its counterparts in the ancient world” (emphasis his, 31). 

Part 2 (“Institution”) consists of four propositions, the first of which is proposition three (“A Prophet Is a Spokesperson for God, Not a Predictor of the Future,” 35–44). In this chapter, Walton demonstrates that contrary to the popular view of prophets as foretellers they were spokesmen for God revealing his plan and purpose for his people: “I contend that we make a serious mistake when we think of prophecy as prediction. This is true, first, because prophecy does not just deal with the future. Instead, analysis shows that prophets offered God’s messages concerning the past and the present as much or more than they spoke about the future. Second, they were engaged not in telling the future but in revealing God’s plans and purposes (offering a viewpoint that at times extended into the future) . . . nothing that God says could legitimately be labeled as prediction because God is always involved in causation . . . God decrees the course of history; he does not predict the future” (emphasis his, 35–36). The fourth proposition (“Prophecy in the Old Testament is Not Monolithic but Developing,” 45–50) traces prophecy in four distinct phases in Israel’s history: preclassical Prophets (e.g. Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, etc.), preexilic classical Prophets (Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel), postexilic classical Prophets (Haggai, Zechariah, Joel, Obadiah, and Malachi), and the apocalyptic Prophet, Daniel. Walton observes that the preclassical Prophets resemble other ancient Near Eastern prophets in that their main audience was the king. However, the preexilic classical Prophets differed from their precursors in that they addressed everyone. The message of both types of Prophets focused on covenant faithfulness: “the critique of kings in the preclassical period broadened into the critique of the people in the classical period” (47). The classical Prophets’ message was overall one of rebuke and a calling of Israel and Judah to return to God and his covenant, for only 20% of prophetic material is positive and focuses on the future restoration of Israel and Judah. For this reason, Walton proposes “that the primary function of the classical prophets was to rebuke the people, not to announce the future” (48). 

In the fifth proposition (“The Classical Prophets Are Champions of the Covenant in Times of Crisis,” 51–58), Walton explores further the message of the classical Prophets, concluding that God raised them up to deliver messages to his people in light of current events of their day. This means that it is difficult for us to extend their messages to contexts that they did not address. The sixth proposition (“Prophecy Takes a Variety of Different Shapes After the Old Testament,” 59–65) examines how, contrary to the belief of some, prophecy continued beyond the lives of the last canonical Old Testament Prophets. 

Part 3 of The Lost World (“Literature”) contains three propositions that focus on the Old Testament prophetic works. In proposition seven (“Recognition of the Categories of Prophetic Message Help Us to Be More Informed Readers,” 69–73), Walton delves into the four categories of prophetic messages in the Old Testament: indictment, judgment, instruction, and aftermath. The eighth proposition (“Prophets Were Typically Not Authors,” 74–79) investigates the relationship of the Prophets to the Old Testament works that bear their name. Walton begins by setting forth an eightfold process of composition for these books: 1. the prophetic event occurs, 2. the message is delivered to the intended audience, 3. the message is transcribed, 4. messages are then compiled, 5. these compiled messages are set into a narrative framework, 6. the combined messages and narratives produces what we would call a book, 7. the prophet’s name is placed at the beginning of the work, and 8. the book becomes part of the canon. If this process is correct, then the prophets themselves are not technically the composers of the works that bear their names. Instead, it seems probable that other persons who witnessed the fulfillment of their prophecies of judgment and saw the potential for the fulfillment of their prophecies of restoration or aftermath gathered their messages and compiled them. 

In the ninth proposition (“The Implied Audience of the Prophetic Books Is Not Necessarily the Audience of the Prophet,” 80–86), Walton questions whether the implied audience—or the audience for whom the author intended his work—of a prophetic work is the same audience of the Prophet and concludes that it may not be. He contends that the Prophets did not have “insider knowledge about when or how fulfillment might take place: first, because fulfillment can happen more than once, and second, fulfillment often takes oblique turns” (85, he will return to this notion in proposition eleven). Consequently, Walton proposes three categories for thinking about the implied audience of a prophetic book: 1. the audience to whom the Prophet originally spoke and directed his messages, 2. the implied audience to whom a prophetic book is directed, and 3. the Prophet’s message is received by the audience among whom it is fulfilled. “This means that when we seek to interpret the prophets, we would do best to distinguish these varying levels. We first explore the meaning of the prophetic oracles in their own time as best we can (text in context). If the interpreter concludes that there have been stages of accumulation (such as some believe about layers of Isaiah or Daniel), the significance of each layer should be analyzed. The next step is to consider what we know of the final compilation of the book (sadly, often very little) to consider whether those who have committed the collected oracles to writing have adapted its message in some way to their name. Finally, we can consider how the book or the messages it comprises has been interpreted as having been fulfilled by various interpreters in their times” (86). 

Part 4 (“Methodological and Interpretive Issues”) contains four propositions, the first of which, “Distinction Between Message and Fulfillment Provides Clear Understanding of Prophetic Literature,” 89–101), emphasizes that to interpret the Prophets properly we should give equal attention to the message a Prophet received from God that he delivered to the original audience and the fulfillment of that prophecy “that brings additional meaning to the original prophetic message” (90). The idea of fulfillment includes the New Testament writers’ use of the Prophets whose messages they adapted and repackaged to their own contexts: “The prophets expected their prophetic oracles to be fulfilled, but they did not have revelation concerning what that fulfillment might look like. Since they were delivering a word from God, the possibilities were manifold and could take unexpected turns” (90). Concerning the New Testament writers use of the Prophets, Walton concludes that “Old Testament texts invite Christotelic repackaging; they do not demand reinterpretation of the Old Testament as being about Christ” (emphasis his, 101). 

Proposition eleven (“Fulfillment Follows Oblique Trajectories,” 102–7) catalogues four ways that Old Testament prophecy can have oblique trajectories: 1. “When people change their course, projected fulfillment can be forestalled or eliminated” (emphasis his, 102), 2. “Fulfillment can occur multiple times,” 3. “Fulfillment may be altered,” and 4. “Fulfillment may not look like what would have been anticipated” (emphasis his, 103). In the twelfth proposition (“The New Testament Use of Old Testament Prophecy Focuses on Fulfillment, Not Message,” 108–15), Walton examines the New Testament writers’ use of Old Testament prophecy, concluding that the former were “much more interested in revealing fulfillment than in a text-in-context interpretation of the Old Testament prophets,” like Walton desires the reader to adopt. Nevertheless, “This does not subordinate the fulfillment, nor does it undervalue the contributions of the New Testament. This in turn can caution us about pronouncing how prophecies have been or might be fulfilled when we have no New Testament precedent for such identifications of fulfillment” (115). Proposition thirteen (“Prophecy Carries Important Implications for Understanding God and the Future, but Our Ability to Forge a Detailed Eschatology with Confidence is Limited,” 116–23) explores the eschatology of the Prophets and Walton proposes that while we cannot develop a detailed eschatology and timeline from them, they inform us that in light of the ideal covenant hope of the Prophets and transcendent hope in the New Testament expressed through the adaption of the former, the future is in God’s hands: “The focus of our eschatology is therefore easy enough: God’s kingdom will come, and it will feature Jesus, the risen Savior and the reigning king—Immanuel and Messiah” (120). 

Part 5 (“Apocalyptic”) contains three propositions, the first of which, proposition fourteen (“Apocalyptic Should Be Differentiated from Classical Prophecy,” 127–34) demonstrates the differences between classical prophecy and apocalyptic prophecy with an amazing table (I love tables and charts, FYI). For example, classical prophecy focused on direct divine revelation, “Thus says the Lord.” However, apocalyptic focused on the mediation of revelation through a vision or angel. In the end, Walton hypothesizes that apocalyptic, like all prophecy, “does not have the purpose of foretelling the future. Instead, it reveals how God’s plans and purposes begun in the past will find future completion” (134). In proposition fifteen (“In Apocalyptic Literature, Visions Are Not the Message but the Occasion for the Message,” 135–47), Walton suggests that apocalyptic literature contains exotic symbolism, which to interpret properly one must ask what the symbol is, what does it stand for, and what is its cultural significance? When this occurs, it becomes clear that “apocalyptic literature cannot and should not be used as a foundation for constructing eschatological systems, timelines, and predictions” (142). The last and final proposition, proposition sixteen (“New Testament Apocalyptic Operates by the Same Principles as Old Testament Apocalyptic,” 148–57), argues that instead of trying to develop an eschatology timeline and system from the New Testament, “we should focus on hope and faith. Though no one knows the time, we are to live in expectation of the soon return of Christ” (148). 

In The Lost World’s final chapter (“Concluding Thoughts: A Reading Strategy,” 159–73), Walton explores how we should read Old Testament prophetic and apocalyptic texts by rearticulating his argument: we should read them through faith and with the knowledge that God is working out his plan for history. This theocentric reading of Scripture differs radically from the self-focused way that pervades evangelical Christianity: “instead of each singular piece of Scripture being viewed as a personalized message to my life and circumstances, each of those pieces has a contribution to make to my understanding of the plans and purposes of God” (160). In the end, Walton notes that the Old Testament Prophets testify to God’s plan and the fulfillment of that plan is God’s business. 

This work is well researched, well argued, well written, thoughtful, and above all pastorally minded. While not an evangelical myself, it seems to me that Walton has achieved his goal of helping Christians, in particular American evangelical Christians, to read Scripture more responsibly and he does an excellent job demonstrating the need and benefit of reading the Old Testament Prophets in their ancient Near Eastern context: Bravo! I encourage everyone interested in Old Testament prophecy, apocalypses, and the New Testament writers’ use of the Old Testament Prophets to pick up a copy! You can do so directly through IVP Academic Press! 

I am grateful to IVP Academic Press for providing me with a gratis review copy that in no way influenced my work. 

Review of Markus Öhler’s History of Early Christianity

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Markus Öhler, History of Early Christianity: Religion, Culture, Identity, trans. Jason Valdez (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2025)

In this work, Öhler’s goal is to provide an introductory textbook to the history of early Christianity from its beginnings with the ministry of Jesus to AD 135, the Bar Kokhba Revolt. To achieve this end, he dispenses with footnotes and “the usual formulations of historical research (‘probably,’ ‘possibly,’ etc.)” (xii). To allow the reader to delve deeper into various events and aspects of early Christianity and its world, Öhler provides a list of suggested readings at the end of each section. Along these same lines, he places helpful small summaries on the side of each page describing the topic he addresses. Öhler organizes his work into sixteen chapters and places a list of abbreviations and four indices at the end.

The first chapter (“Basic Questions of a History of Early Christianity,” 1–8) describes the academic study of Christianity, discusses the terms and sources that Öhler uses, and sets the chronological framework for the work. 

In the second chapter (“The Greco-Roman World: Power Structures, Society, and Religion,” 9–36), Öhler explores various components of the pagan world in which the Christian movement began. 

The third chapter (“The Religion and Culture of the Judeans: Judaism in the Early Imperial Era,” 37–60) focuses on the Judean and Diaspora Jewish environment of nascent Christianity.

In the fourth chapter (“Chronology of Early Christianity,” 61–74), Öhler provides an absolute and relative chronology of the events of embryonic Christianity.

The fifth chapter (“Jesus of Nazareth,” 75–102) covers the life, ministry, death, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, while the sixth (“The New Beginning: Easter and Pentecost,” 103–110) examines the Easter Event and Apostle’s experience of the Holy Spirit on the Pentecost after Jesus’s resurrection. 

In the seventh chapter (“The First Communities in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria,” 111–34), Öhler provides a discussion of the earliest Christian communities in the Holy Land. 

The eight chapter (“The Spread of Belief in Christ to Syria,” 135–48) traces the movement of Christianity from its Jewish homeland into the Gentile world in Syria. 

In the ninth chapter (“Paul’s Early Years,” 149–60), Öhler reconstructs St. Paul’s life from his Diaspora origins to his early years as a missionary.  

The tenth chapter (“The Ongoing Controversy of the Law and Judean Identity,” 161–78) investigates the dispute of the role of the Jewish Torah in the early Christian movement focusing on Acts 15 and Galatians 2.

In the eleventh chapter (“The Spread of the Gospel in Asia Minor and Achaea through Paul,” 179–204), Öhler traces St. Paul’s missionary travels from Acts 13 to 21, placing the first missionary journey in Acts 13 directly after the Apostolic Council in Acts 15.

The twelfth chapter (“The Pauline Ecclesiae,” 205–24) pauses from the discussion of Christianity’s spread to address various aspects of the early Christian congregations associated with St. Paul. 

In the thirteenth chapter (“The Continuation and Inclusion of Judean Identity in Early Christianity from the Apostolic Council to the Bar Kokhba Revolt (47–135 CE),” 225–40), Öhler focuses on the spread of Christianity and its associated events in the Holy Land from AD 47 to 135. 

The fourteenth chapter (“Early Christianity in Greco-Roman Society Between 60 and 90 CE,” 241–56) probes external events that occurred to Christians outside the Holy Land from AD 60 to 90 with a focus on persecution. 

In the fifteenth chapter (“Internal Crises in Early Christianity from 60 to 135 CE,” 257–70), Öhler explores various internal matters that affected Christians from AD 60 to 135 with attention to Christian doctrine. 

The final chapter, the sixteenth (“Inner Transformation in Early Christianity from 60 to 135 CE,” 271–86) examines changes from the first generation of Christians to the second and third with a focus on Church structure. 

Finally, Öhler provides a helpful list of abbreviations of sources he uses throughout as well as four indices: one for names (“Index of Names,” 293–95), one for subjects (“Index of Subjects,” 296–99), one for place (“Index of Places,” 300–2), and one for ancient sources, including the Bible (“Index of Scripture and Ancient Sources,” 303–21). In addition, Öhler has three figures, eight maps, and four tables interspersed throughout the book.

Öhler’s work is clear, well-informed, and brims with the precision one expects from him. At the same time, it is concise, coming in at a total of 321 pages, well organized, especially as a reference tool, and easy to navigate. What is more, while stemming from a historical-critical framework of interpretation, Öhler’s overall conclusions are well-balanced and generally he fairly treats the interpretative, historical, and theological issues of early Christianity. In short, unlike some secular works on ancient Christianity, Öhler reads the ancient Christian (and pagan) sources for the purpose of constructing a history of early Christianity, not deconstructing the nascent religious movement.   

Therefore, if you are looking for a history of early Christianity written from a secular perspective that relies on the historical-critical method of the inquiry of history, then purchase your copy from Baylor University Press by clicking here or Amazon by clicking here. 

I am grateful to Baylor University Press for a gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced by review of it.

Review of Paula Fredriksen’s Ancient Christianities

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Paula Fredriksen, Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024)

This work’s purpose is to relate the story of ancient Christianity from the first to the fifth century AD, focusing on its development from a form of Second Temple Judaism in ancient Palestine to the creation of an imperial Church in the Western Roman Empire. Fredriksen’s goal is to introduce “the complexities and ambiguities, the ironies and surprises, the twists and turns” of this movement by examining materials outside the New Testament such as Second Temple Jewish, pagan, and non-canonical Christian works (xiii). In the process, she seeks to describe how Israel’s God went from being one god among many whom the inhabitants of the Roman Empire worshiped to the empire’s sole deity (xiv). Fredriksen’s work is divided into seven chapters, a conclusion, and back matter.  

In chapter 1 (“The Idea of Israel,” 1–29), Fredriksen reconstructs the early Christian message in ancient Palestine and its development and alteration as Christianity spread in the larger Greco-Roman world. In the process, she focuses on the idea of “Israel” in it. Fredriksen tracks how the movement began as the eschatological renewal of Israel, including Jews and Gentiles, and morphed into an imperial Church dominated by Gentiles who “claimed the title ‘Israel’ for itself.”

Chapter 2 (“The Dilemmas of Diversity,” 30–59) explores the various groups and theologies that were a part of the first five hundred years of the Christian movement. Hence, Fredriksen’s preferred term of Christianities versus Christianity. She proposes that the earliest days of the movement witnessed theological diversity but that as it expanded and grew such diversity was condemned as heresy. 

In chapter 3 (“Martyrdom and Persecution,” 60–89), Fredriksen reconstructs the reasons for the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, their failure to maintain pagan ancestral cultic customs and thus threaten the relationship between heaven and earth in Greek and Roman cities.

Chapter 4 (“The Future of the End,” 90–112) investigates the eschatological diversity of early Christianity with an eye to millenarian movements and the trend as the movement went on from emphasizing the imminence of Jesus’s Second Coming to focusing on one’s place in the afterlife, heaven or hell.

In chapter 5 (“Christ and Empire,” 113–43), Fredriksen surveys the political, social, and intellectual belief systems of the Roman Empire and how they contributed to controversies among early Christians about the nature of Jesus Christ and his relationship to God. 

Chapter 6 (“The Redemption of the Flesh,” 144–71) focuses on how the delay of Jesus’s Second Coming, along with philosophical beliefs of the soul, contributed to the development of novel Christian teachings on sex, asceticism, and poverty among believers. 

In chapter 7 (“Pagan and Christian,” 172–97), which is somewhat of a catchall chapter, Fredriksen explores the use of the term “pagan” among early Christians, the practice of magic and the veneration of relics among them, and the formation of the primacy of the Roman Church in the Christian West. 

Her conclusion (“Conclusion,” 198–205) offers a summary of the work emphasizing, once again, the diversity of the Christian movement. 

Fredriksen ends her book with various back matter: an acknowledgement (“Acknowledgements,” 207–9), a timeline of the first five hundred years of the Christian movement (“Timeline,” 211–17), a glossary (“Glossary,” 219–22), a list of supplemental readings (“Supplemental Readings,” 223–43), and indices (“Source Index,” 245–54; “Names and Place Index,” 255–59; “Subject Index,” 260–63).

This strengths of Ancient Christianities are its breadth, the various themes of the history of the early Church in the Greco-Roman world that Fredriksen covers, and her encyclopedic knowledge of Jewish, (Greek and Latin) Christian, and pagan sources. Moreover, this book is pure Fredriksen with its prose being clear, concise, on-point, and witty. For example, she refers to St. Paul’s understanding of the Messiah living in believers as the latter living “in a spiritually radioactive zone” (7).

There are, however, two limitations of this work. The first is in her choice of how to construct Ancient Christianities. Because of her desire to stress the diversity of beliefs among early Christians and not to give an impression of an arc of linear development, Fredriksen opts to focus on themes in the first five hundred years of the Church (xiv). While I understand this desire, especially given the philosophical and ideological framework through which she approaches early Christian history, it has taken away from the book’s coherence. For example, the last chapter seems to be a catchall for themes in the first five hundred years of Christianity in the West that she desires to address: the use of the term pagan, magical arts, the veneration of relics, and the primacy of Rome in the Christian West. 

The second limitation of Fredriksen’s work is its narrow attention to Christianity in the Greek and Latin speaking portions of the Roman Empire. Rome was not the center of the Christian movement, even in the fifth century AD. For example, Robert Louis Wilken (The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013]) has recently composed a magisterial work surveying the first one thousand years of Christian history, which highlights the lack of centralized governance in the Church in the form of the Roman Papacy and demonstrates how within the first five hundred years of its existence Christianity spread to non-Greek and Latin speaking peoples in Armenia, Persia, Ethiopia, Central Asia, and even India. What is more, Christians living in these areas quickly composed Christian works in their native tongues and in the case of Armenia (as well as with the Slavs later in the first millennium AD), Christians wrote down for the first time a language that had heretofore only been spoken. 

For these reasons, I cannot recommend Ancient Christianities to you for purchase. Instead, if you are looking for a history of early Christianity, then I encourage you to read Wilken’s well-balanced work, which you can buy on Amazon or directly from Yale University Press.  

I appreciate Princeton University Press for this gratis copy, which (as you can see) in no way influenced my review.

Review of Jonathan Bernier, Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022)

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The purpose of this book is to explore the question: when were the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as well as 1 Clement, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas composed? Jonathan Bernier’s answer to this query is that, aside from the Pauline epistles, many of these works were written some twenty to thirty years before most scholars conclude they were composed:

Early Christian WorkDate (all dates are in AD)
Matthew 45–49
Mark 42–45
Luke 59
John 60–70
Acts 62
Romans Winter of 56/57
1 Corinthians Early 56
2 Corinthians Late 56
Galatians 47–52
Ephesians 57–59
Philippians 57–59
Colossians 57–59
1 Thessalonians 50–52
2 Thessalonians 50–52
1 Timothy (if Pauline)63 or 64
1 Timothy (if not Pauline)60–150
2 Timothy (if Pauline)64–68
2 Timothy (if not Pauline)60–150
Titus (if Pauline)64–68
Titus (if not Pauline)60–150
Philemon 57–59
Hebrews 50–70
James Before 62
1 Peter 60–69
2 Peter (if Petrine) 60–69
2 Peter (if not Petrine)60–125
1 John 60–100
2 John 60–100
3 John Before 100
Jude Before 96
Revelation 68–70
1 Clement 64–70
Didache 60–125
Epistle of Barnabas70–132
Shepherd of Hermas 70–125

Bernier arrived at these dates from what he calls a synthetic treatment of early Christian history that “considers judgments on a disparate range of distinct yet densely interconnected matters and seeks to integrate them into a complex but unified synthesis.” The reason for this type of treatment is that the issue of dating these Christian works tends “to spiderweb into a need to treat one or more of” the above-mentioned works (1).   

Bernier divides his monograph into an Introduction, ten chapters, which form the bulk of the book, and a Conclusion. In the Introduction, he places his work into the history of scholarship on the question of dating the New Testament books, especially the work of James A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (3–17), and defines its parameters, method, and goals (17–32). Bernier’s aim is to provide relative dates for the New Testament books and four other early noncanonical Christian works from the synchronization of events of early Christian history, the contextualization of these Christian literary sources, and from what we know of the authors of these works, what Bernier calls authorial biography (22–27). 

The first and second chapters of Rethinking focus on the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. Bernier accepts that Mark was composed first, Matthew second, and Luke and Acts (by the same author) third. His main foci of the first chapter is: (1) whether or not Jesus’s prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction requires a post AD 70 date (see Matthew 22:7; 24:1–2; 26:59–61; 27:51; Mark 13:1–2; 14:57–58; 15:38; Luke 19:41–44; 21:5–6, 20–28; 23:45) and (2) the dating of Luke-Acts. Bernier concludes that nothing in Matthew, Mark, or Luke demands a post AD 70 date. To the contrary, Jesus’s warning about the abomination of desolation and the events connected to it (Matthew 24:15–31; Mark 13:14–27) “are more fully intelligible before 70 than they are after” and the references to Jesus’s Second Coming (Matthew 16:28; 24:34; Mark 9:1; 13:30; Luke 9:27; 21:32) favor an earlier, rather than a later, date (66–67). Moreover, because Acts ends with Paul awaiting trial, it most likely dates before AD 62 (67). 

In the second chapter, Bernier contextualizes the Synoptic Gospels and examines biographical data from them, proposing that the lack of emphasis on the Gentile mission in Mark places it before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 (AD 48) and Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels sometime after that but before AD 62 (because he dates Acts to AD 62 and places Matthew before Luke) (70–71). In addition, Marcan authorship of Mark and its connection to Peter in Rome is plausible and the “we-passages” of Acts suggest that the author was a companion of Paul (82–84). 

The third and fourth chapters of Rethinking examine the Johannine documents, John’s Gospel, 1–3 John, and Revelation. External evidence, namely P52, places John before AD 120, the prediction of Peter’s death (John 21:18–19) tends to support a time when the apostle was alive, Jesus’s comment about the author of John remaining alive until the Second Coming (John 21:22–23) does not require the Beloved Disciple to be dead at the time of composition, and Jesus’s references to the temple (John 2:19–22; 4:21) are intelligible before or after its destruction. However, Bernier finds that the mentioning of the pool of Bethesda as existing at the time of the Gospel’s composition suggests a date before AD 70 (102). Moreover, he argues that past reasons for a late date of John, namely Christology and the author’s supposed knowledge of Gnosticism, are flawed. He proposes that John’s Christology is as “high” as Paul’s and that John does not evince knowledge of second century AD Gnosticism (108). For these reasons, he dates John before AD 70. 

From external evidence, 1–3 John date before AD 150, AD 175, and AD 250 respectively. Internally, the Christology of 1–2 John suggests that these letters are not earlier than Paul’s epistles (115–17) and the most probable candidates for authorship of these missives are John the son of Zebedee or John the Elder, both of which lived in the first century AD (118). Concerning Revelation, Bernier hypothesizes that the beasts of Revelation 13:1–18 make more sense before Nero’s death in AD 68 than after, and the references to the Jerusalem temple and Jerusalem in Revelation 11:1–2, 13 are more intelligible before AD 70 than after (123). Internally, the author’s concern for food offered to idols makes more sense between AD 40 and 60 (when early Christians were debating under what circumstances Gentiles could enter their movement), the references to Rome as Babylon cannot exclude a pre-AD 70 date, and that the work probably dates between AD 68 and 70 (126).

In chapters five and six, Bernier tackles the Pauline corpus. The former chapter discusses Pauline authorship—Bernier accepts the undisputed letters, that Paul contributed to Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, and he offers possible date ranges that include and exclude Pauline authorship for the Pastorals (1–2 Timothy and Titus)—and the importance of Acts for dating Paul’s letters (133–43). In chapter six, he attempts to date and provide provenances for each epistle in the corpus. In the process, he places Galatians as the first extant Pauline letter, the Prison Epistles in Caesarea Maritima in the late AD 50s, and the Pastorals to the AD 60s if genuine, but between AD 60 and the mid-second century AD if they are not (179–82).

Chapters seven and eight discuss the Catholic Epistles, less 1–3 John. In chapter seven, Bernier examines Hebrews and James. Concerning the former, the reference to the temple (Hebrews 10:1–3) is more intelligible if the temple were still standing and the mentioning of Timothy places the work after this individual entered Christian ministry around AD 50 (193). Hebrews 2:3 and the reference to the author and his audience hearing the Gospel from those who heard it from Jesus presupposes an author who has not heard the earthly Jesus. All these data place the missive between AD 50 and 70 (194–95). Decisive external and internal evidence to date the letter of James is lacking. However, it’s probable author, James the brother of Jesus, places it before AD 62 (209). 

Chapter eight of Rethinking considers 1–2 Peter and Jude. Concerning 1 Peter, Bernier notes that decisive external and internal data to help date this missive are lacking. However, because Peter composed it, it dates between AD 60 and 69 (223). Second Peter must postdate the Pauline letters (2 Peter 3:15b–16) and this epistle is the strongest candidate for a pseudonymous letter in the New Testament (229). Like 1 Peter, there is not much data to date Jude. However, it was probably written by the historical Jude who probably died at the end of Domitian’s reign. Therefore, the letter probably predates AD 96. 

In chapters nine and ten, Bernier examines the noncanonical writings,1 Clement, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. Chapter nine considers the first two. Concerning 1 Clement, Bernier contends that the work’s reference to the deaths of Peter and Paul (1 Clement 5:4–7) call for a date after AD 64 and that 1 Clement is more intelligible before AD 70 than after (250–51). With regard to the Didache, Bernier surmises that the author(s) knew Matthew’s Gospel (which he dates between AD 45 and 49), that the focus on the inclusion of Gentiles (Didache 6:2–3) “parallels” the concern of the Christian movement between AD 40 and 60, and that the references to traveling teachers, prophets, apostles, bishops, and deacons (Didache 11–13) are closer to AD 40 through 60 than the second century AD (258). In chapter ten, Bernier concludes that the Epistle of Barnabas (especially 16:3–4) postdates the temple’s destruction in AD 70 but no later than AD 132, the beginning of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (270–71), and that the Shepherd of Hermas is more intelligible near the end or after the apostolic generation than before (274). 

Finally, in his Conclusion, Bernier summarizes his work and calls for more attention to synthetic methods of dating early Christian and Jewish texts.

This monograph is a tour de force of synthetic logic and reasoning, which has caused me to reconsider my own dating of some New Testament documents and the “orthodoxy” of dating of these early Christian texts found in most New Testament introductions. In particular, Bernier has piqued my interest in exploring further the relationship between the temple’s destruction and the dating of the New Testament documents. In short, do the references to this event in the Gospels necessitate a post AD 70 dating? I look forward to thinking with Bernier’s work to answer this question and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the dating of the New Testament documents! Click here to purchase the book directly from Baker and here from Amazon.

The destruction of the temple (1867) by Francesco Hayez now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, Italy

I appreciate Baker Academic for providing me with a review copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it!