Forgotten Christianities

Syllabus

led by Jon Cleland-Host from March 22 to April 19, 2004 

Hello, and welcome to the Forgotten Christianities study group. We will only meet 5 times, so I encourage everyone to delve into the further readings mentioned and continue your own investigations as you like. We’ll adapt to the direction we all prefer to take, so expect changes to this syllabus.

A word about religious tolerance – We will be discussing many different and contradictory religious views in the next few weeks. Please be respectful of the religious views discussed – they may be the religion of the person sitting next to you. We can discuss whether or not a story is likely to be historically true or not, but should never denigrate someone for finding spiritual meaning in any tradition, no matter whether that tradition is "orthodoxy", "heresy", "factually true" or "historically unlikely".

Our meetings will have a common structure: 

Here is the content for each meeting, as well as suggested readings for beforehand: 

Meeting #1: The Ancient World - suggested reading: Pliny, Historical Jesus at ECW, others as you wish)

Ironically, we will spend no time on actual lost Christianities in this meeting. Instead, we’ll be looking at the basics of the ancient world, cover some greek philosophy, then some Jewish religious movements and the historical Jesus to get a better idea about the world just before, during, and just after Jesus’ life.  

Meeting #2: Overview of ancient texts, and the Ebionites,(pp. xi to xv, and 9-103)

How were ancient texts copied and published in the ancient world? What are some of the ancient Christian texts we have outside of the New Testament? Who were the Ebionites? Why did they believe what they believed? Why were they and others like them called "adoptionists"? How do Adoptionists differ from Monarchianists? How did the Ebionites view Paul? 

Meeting #3: Marcionites & the first Canon (pp 103-113, Marcion/Antitheses on ECW, Docetist web pages)

Who were the Marcionites? How did they view the Old Testament? What was the first "New Testament" ever to exist as a set list? How did the Marcionites view Paul? What is a Docetist?  

Meeting #4: Gnostics & Naq Hammadi (pp 113-134, GoM, GoT, Gnostic Web Pages)

Who were the Gnostics? Were they a separate group from the proto-orthodox? Why was the Naq Hammadi discovery important for our understanding of Gnosticism?  

Meeting #5: Manicheans, Arians, others, and early Christian History (Web Pages, pp 135-257)

What other types of early Christianities were there? How varied were their beliefs? How many groups appear to have existed? What happened in the 2^nd through 5^th centuries to eliminate many of these alternative understandings of Jesus?  Who were the Montanists?

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland is recognized by the Unitarian Universalist Association as a Welcoming Congregation. We welcome, affirm, promote and celebrate the full participation of all persons in all of our activities without regard to age, gender, sexual orientation, race or any other such category of exclusion.

Please feel free to contact us with any feedback, corrections or questions at jaham@delta.edu