Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[proudfootz]

No, it is not just another broken link between the literature we have and the supposed origin in the life and career of an Historic Jesus, because I was not offering any evidence for an Historical Jesus.

I was responding to a proposition for Egyptian authorship of the texts for the purposes of creating a Mythology, or creating a Mythology as a Hoax.

Again, having address to a proposition assigning origin, authorship and cultural belonging does not inherit a position of assigning origin, authorship and cultural belonging equal to the support for an Historical Jesus.

It doesn't inherit anything; it means that the proposition is being addressed where there is issue in the conclusion of the proposition for assignment of origin, authorship and culture - that is all.

I was responding to IanS's point about the lack of evidence of a Jesus following in Palestine.

I apologize if I didn't make that clear.

 

[proudfootz]

proudfootz wrote

You seem to assume that IF there was an historic Jesus there would be no need to 'explain'.

You're going to have to explain to me how you could possibly understand that from my post.

This is the post I was responding to:

"In this case, it's either based on a man (which the story claims to be, and which is very credible) or isn't, in which case one has to explain how it developed."

Maybe you didn't read your own post before you posted?

Besides, we already have an explanation for HJ.

Paul explained it for us long ago: reading scripture, having fits, and experiencing visions while not on sight-seeing tours through various levels of Heaven.

 

[proudfootz]

Jim Walker's review of Bart Ehrman's book is a good overview of the problems .

Yes, Walker points up several interesting facets of Ehrman's DJE?

Ehrman would have done better to stick to his positive case for Jesus's existence.

 

[IanS]

Ian, stop talking to me like I'm proposing HJ.

I have not suggested that you have proposed a HJ. Though iirc some pages back you did actually say you thought his reality was more likely than not? Though that had no bearing at all on anything I've said to you in the present discussion about these mss all being found in Egypt.

But if you do detect that I'm talking to you a particular way on this issue, that's because you have suddenly started to talk in the most obscure and flowery terms, as if you had lost all interest in clarity of accurate communication - writing like that is almost always a sign that the writer does not have a coherent argument and is trying to compensate by a mass of evasive verbiage.

Also, it's probably better not to appear to be talking down to people as if you are the great expert on any of this. Because this is a subject, i.e. the existence or otherwise of evidence for a HJ, on which almost everyone here is at least as familiar with the material as you are. Not to mention the fact that you are talking here to many people with doctorates (and more) in far more analytically demanding subjects than bible studies ... and those people are perfectly well equipped to work out for themselves what is likely to be true and what is not, according to the stuff which has been presented here as credible evidence and credible argument.

The only issue I have been commenting on is that we cannot just assign Egyptian authorship due to Egyptian finding geographically.

I do not understand why you continue to take me to assert something else.

I have not said that you are asserting anything much at all. Actually that is part of the problem - your posts on this have become so generalised and so vague that they amount to you saying that almost anything is possible regarding the origin of the written gospels and letters. Well, I have to tell you (as if you did not already know) that almost anything is possible about literally anything in this universe! - it’s “possible” that evolution, QM, GR etc. are not actually correct in the way science thinks they almost certainly are. It’s not very likely, but it’s just about “possible”. So of course it is “trivially” possible that Jesus stories first arising Judea, found their way to being written in Egypt some centuries latter … it’s possible … anything is possible … you could make a case for all sorts of possible routes to that….But -

- if you have no substantial evidence that those Jesus stories were originally told and written where the events supposedly occurred in Judea, and if to the contrary all the actual material evidence of the recovered earliest writing is found to originate from Egypt, then on the face of things the fist conclusion must be that the Jesus story as we have discovered it, probably first appeared in Egypt and not in Judea.

I do not say that it definitely did first appear in Egypt. What I am saying is that if all the discovered written evidence appears in Egypt, and if there is no credible explanation of how those mss got to Egypt except by being actually written there, then the conclusion has to be that as far as we can tell the Jesus story was first being written in Egypt and not in Judea.

There are several famous works fryom Alexandria which were not written by Egyptyians.
Other cultures were not hundreds of miles away, but instead in Alexandria - indeed teaching in Alexndria.

I'm working on cultural assignment over time; it is a slow process.
Alexandria is quite on the list, so is Anatolia and possibly Athens.

Judea is not on my list much, because I hold that such would not have happened until post-diasppora, which would remove Judea properly.

However, this does not rule out Hebrew source for the wriing of at least 1 and possibly 2 texts.

There are no 1st c CE texts, without debate, in general from the Judean region, not that I would ever expect to find a Hebrew copy of any there.

If a Hebrew copy from that era were found, I would ventire that it would be found East of the Nile in the mountains of remote semetics.

I did not say, and was not implying, that just because the gospels and letters may have first been written in Egypt, that meant it was Egyptian people who must have done the writing. It may have been Jewish immigrant writers, or anyone else who did the writing. But the point is - whoever it was writing gospels in Egypt in the 4th-6th century, they were very far removed indeed from having the faintest idea about the truth of any legendary religious messianic beliefs of 1st century Judea.

As I said from the very start - I am not presenting any of this as a “killer argument” against a HJ. I am just pointing out, as I did when I first raised this with CraigB about 25 pages back, that it’s yet another problem for any HJ theory, if it turns out that the Jesus is story is not known to have originated in Judea at all, but instead arose 600 miles away and 3, 4 or 5 centuries later in Egypt!

 

[maximara]

Yes, Walker points up several interesting facets of Ehrman's DJE?

Ehrman would have done better to stick to his positive case for Jesus's existence.

But there is the rub as they say. There isn't must regarding a positive case for Jesus's existence that isn't on par with the stories we have of King Arthur and Robin Hood.

Occam's razor suggests the Gospel accounts didn't exist much before 130 CE. Furthermore the historical social political situation with Jesus regarding the Sanhedrin trial, the betrayal of Judas, Pontius Pilate's behavior, the way the body was handled, and the behavior of the Roman after it disappearance are all non-historical.

Compare that to Robin hood story from 1521 on even though Robin Hood had been time shifted from King Edward's time the supporting historical social political situation is right be it the conflict between supporters of Prince John and King Richard, the way someone could be outlaw, the corruption of the Church (opposed to friars), and even Richard returning in disguise ("King Richard traveling in disguise of a pilgrim. tile to him, it was not safe for him to undertake this unless he went in disguise" - Jacob Abbott (1877) History of King Richard the First of England pg 314).

Now sit back and realize this is over 300 years after the time the Robin Hood stories are being placed in. Yet the Jesus stories which are only a century after the supposed fact (c130 CE) get so much wrong but we are told that Jesus is more historical then Robin Hood. The situation become even more ludicrous if you accept the traditional dates of the Gospels.

How does that make any lick of sense? Simply put it doesn't.

 

[proudfootz]

But there is the rub as they say. There isn't must regarding a positive case for Jesus's existence that isn't on par with the stories we have of King Arthur and Robin Hood.

Yes, it would have been a short book. So maybe padding it out was deemed necessary:

"Listen, Bart, we can't just publish a book of 100 pages - can you string it out some more? And we'll need a fresh angle - the historical Jesus has been done to death? Maybe something fresh to appeal to the internet generation? And controversial. That should get you on some chat shows..."

Occam's razor suggests the Gospel accounts didn't exist much before 130 CE. Furthermore the historical social political situation with Jesus regarding the Sanhedrin trial, the betrayal of Judas, Pontius Pilate's behavior, the way the body was handled, and the behavior of the Roman after it disappearance are all non-historical.

I agree, the 'gospel narratives' are late to the scene. The Romans seem to simply be a plot device - they show up to kill the main character then conveniently disappear.

They arrest the guy who's supposedly preaching far and near 'go the extra mile, don't resist the Romans' but let the guy who lops off someone's ear with a sword go?

Or the brutal historical Pilate being bullied by local satraps who threaten a riot? The Romans had a way of dealing with such disturbances, and it wasn't the timid 'Whatever you say, fellers. Why don't you run the province while I comfort my wife who's been having bad dreams...'

Compare that to Robin hood story from 1521 on even though Robin Hood had been time shifted from King Edward's time the supporting historical social political situation is right be it the conflict between supporters of Prince John and King Richard, the way someone could be outlaw, the corruption of the Church (opposed to friars), and even Richard returning in disguise ("King Richard traveling in disguise of a pilgrim. tile to him, it was not safe for him to undertake this unless he went in disguise" - Jacob Abbott (1877) History of King Richard the First of England pg 314).

Now sit back and realize this is over 300 years after the time the Robin Hood stories are being placed in. Yet the Jesus stories which are only a century after the supposed fact (c130 CE) get so much wrong but we are told that Jesus is more historical then Robin Hood. The situation become even more ludicrous if you accept the traditional dates of the Gospels.

How does that make any lick of sense? Simply put it doesn't.

The gospel tales weren't written for people who have a lick of sense - they're written for the rubes.

 

[dejudge]

Yes, Walker points up several interesting facets of Ehrman's DJE?

Ehrman would have done better to stick to his positive case for Jesus's existence.

Ehrman could not have done any better. "Did Jesus Exist?" could have only been a disaster as it turned out to be.

As soon as Bart Ehrman discredited his ONLY source, the NT, then his argument for an historical Jesus of Nazareth would be a total failure.

Ehrman discredited virtually every account of Jesus in the NT from conception to ascension except for a part of the baptism and part of the crucifixion.

Ehrman declared that his source, the NT, is riddled with discrepancies, contradictions, historical problems and events that most likely did not happen.

Plus, the partial events that Ehrman accepted as historical he utterly failed to provide contemporary non-Apologetic corroboration.

 

[dejudge]

Dejudge,
I not once argued against Egypt as an authorship location.
I only questioned how, considering Alexandria and the paleography of the texts, we can attribute the authorship to Egyptians out of all the cultures involved in writing in Alexandria?

I even outlined how I used Alexandria quite explicitly in dispersion of the traditions (a post you could respond to).

I am merely exposing fallacious arguments.

Around c 75 CE Josephus claimed he wrote Wars of the Jews in the "language of our country".

The Preface to Wars of the Jews

I have proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country

.

If the Jesus story originated in Judea then it would be expected to have been written in the language of the Jews.

There is no mention of Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus in any recovered manuscripts in Judea.

 

[proudfootz]

I am merely exposing fallacious arguments.

Around c 75 CE Josephus claimed he wrote Wars of the Jews in the "language of our country".

The Preface to Wars of the Jews .

If the Jesus story originated in Judea then it would be expected to have been written in the language of the Jews.

There is no mention of Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus in any recovered manuscripts in Judea.

Well observed.

Just another gaping hole in the 'historic Jesus' hypothesis.

 

[pakeha]

[ . . .]They arrest the guy who's supposedly preaching far and near 'go the extra mile, don't resist the Romans' but let the guy who lops off someone's ear with a sword go?

Or the brutal historical Pilate being bullied by local satraps who threaten a riot? The Romans had a way of dealing with such disturbances, and it wasn't the timid 'Whatever you say, fellers. Why don't you run the province while I comfort my wife who's been having bad dreams...'



The gospel tales weren't written for people who have a lick of sense - they're written for the rubes.

Yes.
Pontius Pilate's wife was transformed by Christian hagiographers into the granddaughter of Augustus Caesar, no less.

Our most popular booklet entitled *** RELICS OF REPENTANCE ***
The Letters of Pontius Pilate & Claudia Procula (ISBN 0-9625158-2-5)
is centered around a 1st century letter believed to have been written
by Claudia Procula, the wife of Pontius Pilate.

Historical references suggest Claudia was the illegitimate daughter of Julia,
Augustus Caesar's only natural offspring. During her first two marriages
Julia had numerous lovers, and upon the death of her second husband
she married Tiberius. Julia's lewd and scandalous lifestyle continued and
so distressed her father Augustus that he banished her from Rome and
allowed Tiberius to divorce her. While in exile she gave birth to Claudia and
shortly thereafter died. After Tiberius became Emperor, he found favor in
Claudia and adopted her as his own daughter.

http://issanapress.tripod.com/

A most impressive example of Christian literature, indeed.

Try catechetical school alexandria; or didascalia alexandria.

Thanks. Off to read.

 

[JaysonR]

Ian,

I was not intending to talk down to anyone with any of my posts there.
I asked those questions not in hubris, but in earnestness for it dictates where the conversation goes as to what familiarity there is.

I apologize if it read differently.

The reason that I asked to stop being addressed as if I am proposing an HJ argument is because there continues to be this reminder added against it when I am not addressing that subject, but a sub-set of discussion within the accepted axiomatic position of a non-HJ position regarding authoring culture based on the location of finding a majority of texts.

I have expressed that the Historical standard would hold the standard as HJ prone, and indeed they do.
I am fully aware that this point is a bitter point that is not valued by many in this discussion at all, and have sense tried not to bring it up since it offers no valuable discussion point to the table as clearly this discussion in this thread hasn't much interest in what standards exist within the Historical Method, indeed several have even doubted the merits of the entire field of History in discussing how 'Historically Evident' statuses are accomplished.
I had originally started in this thread by pointing out how little Jesus' historicity matters, and then stated that given the historical method, it would appear more likely than not for the case of Jesus by that method.
I later went into some detail as to the difference of me stating that and whether or not Jesus actually existed.
I have no idea if Jesus really existed; I equally don't care.

I am only interested in which cultures were involved in writing and propagating the stories, how they valued them, and what impact that had upon their culture and the Mediterranean culture at large.
My current axiom holds to a compilation Jesus; that is to say that the stories could be summations of several stories of individuals who were advocates during the tumultuous period before the destruction of Jerusalem, and synchronized by borrowing the Zoroastrian narrative template.

I am also not attempting to not answer questions, but where there is an incredible amount of division on the subject, I point out the situation of such, and attempt to paraphrase why.
Some answers are, I believe, unanswerable at this time, and those I will convey my thoughts as well as point out the opposing view (and vice versa).

Equally, I do not think that some answers have a solid yes or no, but a murky grey range of possibilities; and several of those possibilities are involved and nested into discussions which depend upon several axioms and which forms are accepted by a given discourse and which are not (on both sides of the debate).


Regarding Judea,
Again, I am not asserting that they were written in Judea.
I did, however, state that there continues debate over that topic and that is because there are unanswered curiosities in the texts which notably stand as Hebraic in their idiomatic and stylistic presentation.

I, however, would contend that such does not inherit a genesis in Judea, and hold (as I mentioned previously) that even if the stories did begin in Judea:
A) Even if they were written down, it would be highly unlikely that they would have survived considering they were not valued by the Temple (which itself was absolutely destroyed), that the DSS is pretty much the largest text find we have from Judea from around this era (and before) and that was only because we are so lucky that someone tucked them away in such a manner as was done.
B) Even if the stories originated out of Judea by oral tradition, which was the far more common method of conveyance, no one would have written it down until after Hebrews began more migrations out of Judea and speaking their varied stories of all sorts to non-Hebrew culture individuals who, for whatever reason, felt compelled to attempt to make a linear account of such stories.

So even on the most likely two possibilities for pro-Judean origin, there is no reason for me to suspect that we should find Judean scripts with these stories upon them.
The only Hebrew peoples mentioned as (possibly) having a text in Hebrew regarding this figure were small fall-away sects of Hebrews who had left the Judean area; which would make sense for a need to write something down at that point, but I would expect it to be small since most sects were not like the DSS sect and were not holding a scribal doctrine of ritual.


I have rather been open about there being no evidence that is conclusive for a Judean origin.
I was never challenging the Egyptian geographic location as an origin point.

I only ever questioned Dejudge's position that they were written by Egyptians, that they were mythology, and that they were a hoax.
On point, the one of interest was the assignment of Egyptian cultural authorship.

Our earliest texts, by the way, are 2nd c CE.
I think you are highlighting the later dates for the more completely preserved copies, but we do have earlier copies.

By the way, it should be noted that nearly all of the earliest texts are in the Alexandrian text-type.
In my opinion, and for myself, that really closes the door on debating where the first texts were written that we have.

Again, I do not contend an Egyptian geographic origin for the copies we have, nor do I contend that the first written accounts were there.

I do only have contention in ascribing them to Egyptians or to even a single cultural authorship, for the texts share barely any cultural values with each other and strongly suggest widely varied skill levels, purposes, structure, and idioms.

And this is not impossible to accomplish even in Alexandria; multiple groups could have written their versions.
Alexandria was the publishing house of its day; if you wanted your text to be reached by many, then you would make sure to get a copy written down there from where others could access and copy from - it was the best Kindle Book system they could achieve.

So again, geographic location does not help in authorship very much, and that was my only primary concern.

 

[pakeha]

pakeha



Try catechetical school alexandria; or didascalia alexandria.

Fascinating.
Wiki tells us "The Catechetical School of Alexandria was the oldest catechetical school in the world.

Jerome records that the Christian School of Alexandria was founded by St. Mark himself [3] and the first manager appointed by Saint Mark was Saint Justus, who later became the sixth bishop of Alexandria.[4]

There is another opinion that the school was founded mid-second century,[5] around 190 A.D."

So which is it?
Founded by st Mark or founded in the mid-second century?
Or around 190?
Wiki won't commit on the subject.

In any case, that school must have been extraordinary.

 

[JaysonR]

I am merely exposing fallacious arguments.

Around c 75 CE Josephus claimed he wrote Wars of the Jews in the "language of our country".

The Preface to Wars of the Jews .

If the Jesus story originated in Judea then it would be expected to have been written in the language of the Jews.

There is no mention of Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus in any recovered manuscripts in Judea.

That's fine, and that's you questioning a proposition, which I have no questions about your question of that proposition.

But I do have questions about how you arrived at the conclusion of:
1) Egyptian authorship
2) Classification that these texts are mythology as opposed to any other form of literature
2.a) And if mythology is the classification, whose mythology is it?
3) Classification that these texts' authoring motives were each as hoaxes (which means purposeful intent to openly mislead people into a falsehood).

I have no issue with not coming from Judea.
I have no issue with them not being in Hebrew.
The above are the only questions from your proposition which I have had a curiosity with and still have currently.

 

[JaysonR]

Fascinating.
Wiki tells us "The Catechetical School of Alexandria was the oldest catechetical school in the world.

Jerome records that the Christian School of Alexandria was founded by St. Mark himself [3] and the first manager appointed by Saint Mark was Saint Justus, who later became the sixth bishop of Alexandria.[4]

There is another opinion that the school was founded mid-second century,[5] around 190 A.D."

So which is it?
Founded by st Mark or founded in the mid-second century?
Or around 190?
Wiki won't commit on the subject.

In any case, that school must have been extraordinary.

Most likely 2nd c CE founding properly.
Most of Africa on the North and Eastern side claims Mark as their founder.
For instance, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria also holds as founded by Mark, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church also claims that it's origins are in affiliation with St. Mark of Alexandria.

 

[pakeha]

Of course you're right.
I was simply amusing myself at Wiki's expense.

 

[JaysonR]

Of side note; almost all Ethiopic, or Ge'ez script, versions of Mark found are of short-form Mark and not long-form.

 

[IanS]

Ian,

I was not intending to talk down to anyone with any of my posts there.
I asked those questions not in hubris, but in earnestness for it dictates where the conversation goes as to what familiarity there is.

I apologize if it read differently.

The reason that I asked to stop being addressed as if I am proposing an HJ argument is because there continues to be this reminder added against it when I am not addressing that subject, but a sub-set of discussion within the accepted axiomatic position of a non-HJ position regarding authoring culture based on the location of finding a majority of texts.

I have expressed that the Historical standard would hold the standard as HJ prone, and indeed they do.
I am fully aware that this point is a bitter point that is not valued by many in this discussion at all, and have sense tried not to bring it up since it offers no valuable discussion point to the table as clearly this discussion in this thread hasn't much interest in what standards exist within the Historical Method, indeed several have even doubted the merits of the entire field of History in discussing how 'Historically Evident' statuses are accomplished.
I had originally started in this thread by pointing out how little Jesus' historicity matters, and then stated that given the historical method, it would appear more likely than not for the case of Jesus by that method.
I later went into some detail as to the difference of me stating that and whether or not Jesus actually existed..

OK, good. And thanks for that (still a bit too convoluted for my taste, but of course I can live with that). And I also apologise to you if my last few posts seemed to be getting ever more tetchy, to the point of the last one ending up sounding exasperatedly rude.

The point is - I think we should be making this whole issue of a HJ simpler, not more complicated and opaque with increasingly obscure linguistics and increasingly vague suggestions that all sorts of things might be true. Because once it’s descended to that stage then frankly it shows there really is no worthwhile discussion to be had on anything remotely resembling credible evidence.

I have no idea if Jesus really existed; I equally don't care.

Well there lays a significant difference then. Because I certainly do care whether or not Jesus existed. And I would not be wasting my time looking into the matter and disputing any of it with people here if I did not think ity was important. I certainly do not take the view, seemingly held by some here & from far back in various HJ threads, that they are only arguing about it because they find the subject interesting (why?), or because they like arguing on the internet!

As I have said several times (which for some absurd reason always results in a chorus of incredulity if not abuse), the reason I think the issue is important is because I think it is absolutely crucial as the basis of current day Christianity and a Christian Church which exercises worldwide influence within all manner of government policy as well as directly upon the lives of so many millions of people living today.

I am only interested in which cultures were involved in writing and propagating the stories, how they valued them, and what impact that had upon their culture and the Mediterranean culture at large.

Well that is presumably why you are studying the subject at an academic level. And the fact that I have zero interest in that aspect, and why it’s probably obvious that I have little time for the academic value of the subject of biblical studies, is similarly one reason why I decided to spend my academic years studying and then lecturing solid-state and theoretical physics, and not biblical studies. I.e., because I think science has demonstrated that it genuinely does provide real discoveries and real answers to the most fundamental and most complex questions concerning all aspects of human life and the universe around us … whilst subjects like bible studies most certainly do not; and if anything they do the exact opposite by supporting religious belief and wilfully maintaining anti-scientific superstitious ignorance throughout the world.

Hence my previous remarks about what I would do in your position vis-a-vie what course of studies to follow. Though as it happened, an unexpected twist in my life, led me drop the science after 20 years, and take up music full time instead (but that story is a whole different can-of-worms, and not really relevant here).

OK, well your entire post was quite lengthy, so I will stop there for now and take a look at the remainder of your reply tomorrow. But thanks for the whole reply anyway.

 

[maximara]

Well if we _know_ they are myths then we probably know how they were formed. But that's a bit my point: we don't know whether Jesus is myth or not.

Sigh. Even though we know Paul Buynan, Pacos Bill, John the Conqueror, and Captain Stormalong likely belong to the Philosophical myth category (an idea clothed in the caress of historical narrative) does NOT automatically mean we know how they formed.

These people belong to the group of myths known as tall tales and this group also include Johnny Appleseed, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Mike Fink, and many others who have been identified as historical people.

John Henry also belongs to this group and he is a a big question mark. Some say his effort at out doing a steam hammer was at Big Bend tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia between 1869 and 1871 while another theory puts it at the Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel of the Columbus and Western Railway (now part of Norfolk Southern Railway) near Leeds on September 20, 1887.

Unlike the story of Washington's vision where after just 150 years real effort is needed to find its real origin the trail with many myths goes cold. Such is the case with the The Price They Paid myth regarding the fates of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence. It is an interesting mixture of half truths and outfight fabrications but no one is sure where it come from.

The "myth" of Niven's Law (converse of Clarke's Third Law) "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" is another case.

Again no one is exactly sure where this came from or how it came about. It could be a fan take on Arthur C Clarke...but that wouldn't explain why Niven got the credit. It could be a paraphrase of something Niven actually wrote. It could be a summery of an idea Niven wrote about. It could be from some other author and credited to Niven. You see the issue?

 

[Belz...]

Again no one is exactly sure where this came from or how it came about.

Alright but, in the specific case of Jeebus, how can you be sure it's myth if you don't even know how the myth formed, as opposed to knowing it's not historical because you don't know how the history formed ?

 

[dejudge]

How did the myth form about Satan the Devil, the Angel Gabriel, the Holy Ghost, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, the Creation in Genesis, Romulus, Jupiter, Zeus, Osiris, Mars, and the hundreds of myth characters in Roman, Greek, and Jewish mythology?

It is known that people in antiquity believed Mythology was history. Even today, HJers BELIEVE the Myth fables in the NT are merely embellished history.

HJers today believe Jesus was really real even though it is claimed he was born of a Ghost and was God Creator.

Early Christians believed the very same thing.