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Antichthon is the journal of the Australian Society for Classical Studies. The focus of the journal is Greece and Rome, however, its scope is broadly defined so as to embrace the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean from the beginnings of civilisation to the Early Middle Ages.

Journal of Qur'anic Studiees
The Journal of Qur'anic Studies is a peer-reviewed journal that aims to encourage and promote the study of the Qur’an from a wide range of scholarly perspectives, reflecting a diversity of approaches. The Journal of Qur'anic Studies also publishes articles both in English and Arabic, to encourage the bridging of the gap between the two traditions of Muslim and Western scholarship. The Journal of Qur'anic Studies is principally dedicated to the publication of original papers, with a book review section including reviews of new works on the Qur’an.

Gnostic Gospels Dates

 * 1) Scholars like George Albert Wells would argue that there is a substantial body of literature about the teachings of the savior which were originally part of the Jewish wisdom movement.  Gnostic gospels  (like the Odes of Solomon) could then date as early as from 200-100 BCE. Dates this early would be rejected by most scholars if the text specifically mentions Jesus (rather than The Savior) since they are incarnationist (or at least not mythicist)  and believe that there were some teachings at the base.
 * 2) The Gospel of the Lord can be unquestionably dated to at or before Marcion and thus no later than the early 2nd century.  G.R.S. Mead and others have argued that Marcion's gospel predates the canonical Luke and was in use in Pauline churches.
 * 3) The Gospel of Truth and Pistis Sophia can be unquestionably dated to the early 2nd century as they were part of the original Valentinian school.
 * 4) Documents with a Sethian influence (like the Gospel of Judas, or outright Sethian like Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians can be dated substantially later than 40 and substantially earlier than 250; most scholars giving them a 2nd century date. More conservative scholars using the traditional dating method would argue in these cases for the early 3rd century.
 * 5) Some gnostic gospels (for example Trimorphic Protennoia) make use of fully developed Neoplatonism and thus need to be dated after Plotinus in the 3rd century.

Dating

 * See also Gnosticism

The documents which comprise the collection of gnostic gospels were not discovered at a single time, but rather as a series of finds. The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered accidentally by two farmers in December 1945 and was named for the area in Egypt where it had been hidden for centuries. Other documents included in what are now known as the gnostic gospels were found at different times and locations, such as the Gospel of Mary, which was recovered in 1896 as part of the Akhmim Codex and published in 1955. Some documents were duplicated in different finds, and for others, such as the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, only one copy is currently known to exist.

There are differing schools of thought on the dating of the various alternative gospels. On the basis of references within the Early Church Fathers, it has been asserted that the gospels mentioned by Irenaeus date to the 2nd century, and the gospels mentioned solely by Jerome to the 4th century. The traditional dating of the gospels derives primarily from this division. Scholars generally assert the genre of Gnostic gospels emerged in the 2nd century, the earliest texts of which is the Gospel of Thomas.

Date of Composition
Richard Valantasis writes: "Assigning a date to the Gospel of Thomas is very complex because it is difficult to know precisely to what a date is being assigned. Scholars have proposed a date as early as 60 AD or as late as 140 AD, depending upon whether the Gospel of Thomas is identified with the original core of sayings, or with the author's published text, or with the Greek or Coptic texts, or with parallels in other literature." Valantasis and other scholars argue that it is difficult to date Thomas because, as a collection of logia without a narrative framework, individual sayings could have been added to it gradually over time.

Nevertheless, scholars generally fall into one of two main camps: an "early camp" favoring a date for the "core" of between the years 50 and 100, before or approximately contemporary with the composition of the canonical gospels and a "late camp" favoring a date in the 2nd century, after composition of the canonical gospels.

The early camp
Those who argue that Thomas dates from the first century use a variety of arguments:

Form of the gospel
Theissen and Merz argue the genre of a collection of sayings was one of the earliest forms in which material about Jesus was handed down. They assert that other collections of sayings, such as the Q document and the collection underlying Mark 4, were absorbed into larger narratives and no longer survive as independent documents, and that no later collections in this form survive. Meyer also asserts that the genre of a "sayings collection" is indicative of the first century, and that in particular the "use of parables without allegorical amplification" seems to antedate the canonical gospels.

Independence from Synoptic Gospels
Stevan L. Davies argues that the apparent independence of the ordering of sayings in Thomas from that of their parallels in the synoptics shows that Thomas was most likely not reliant upon the canonical Gospels and probably predated them. A number of authors argue that when the logia in Thomas do have parallels in the synoptics the version in Thomas often seems closer to the source. Theissen and Merz give sayings 31 and 65 as examples of this. Similarly Earl Doherty argues that when the Gospel of Thomas does parallel Q or the New Testament, it shows a less developed, more "primitive" or "original" form than the latter. Koester agrees, citing especially the parables contained in sayings 8, 9, 57, 63, 64 and 65. In the few instances where the version in Thomas seems to be dependent on the Synoptics, Koester suggests, this may be due to the influence of the person who translated the text from Greek into Coptic.

Koester also argues that the absence of narrative materials (such as those found in the canonical gospels) in Thomas makes it unlikely that the gospel is "an eclectic excerpt from the gospels of the New Testament". He also cites the absence of the eschatological sayings characteristic of Q to show the independence of Thomas from that source.

Independence from John's gospel
Another argument for the early date (originally brought forward as the central argument of Elaine Pagels' book Beyond Belief The Secret Gospel of Thomas) is that there seems to be conflict between the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas. Certain passages in the Gospel of John can only be understood in light of a community based on the theological teachings of the Gospel of Thomas. John is the only one of the Canonical Gospels that gives Thomas a speaking part - indicating respect for the Thomas community. This is because the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas are theologically similar in almost every respect except one. In the story of Doubting Thomas, the Johannine Community is theologically rebutting the Thomas community. The Johannine Community believes in a bodily resurrection; Thomas community believes in a spiritual resurrection — and completely rejects a bodily resurrection. So the Gospel of John has Thomas physically touch the risen Jesus and acknowledges his bodily nature. Pagel's interpretation of John requires that a Thomas community existed when John's Gospel was written.

Role of James
Albert Hogeterp argues that the Gospel's saying 12, which attributes leadership of the community to James the Just rather than to Peter, agrees with the description of the early Jerusalem church by Paul in, and may reflect a tradition predating CE 70. Meyer also lists "uncertainty about James the righteous, the brother of Jesus" as characteristic of a first century origin.

Depiction of Peter and Matthew
In saying 13, Peter and Matthew are depicted as unable to understand the true significance or identity of Jesus. Patterson argues that this can be interpreted as a criticism against the school of Christianity associated with the Gospel of Matthew, and that "[t]his sort of rivalry seems more at home in the first century than later", when all the apostles had become revered figures.

Parallel with Paul
According to Meyer, Thomas's saying 17: "I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard and no hand has touched, and what has not come into the human heart", is strikingly similar to what Paul told the Corinthians he criticizes in.

Other arguments
The Ecumenical Coptic Project points out in its annotated translation that the grammatic construction of the Coptic and Greek texts suggest they are from translations of an earlier text and not directly from an oral tradition. This hypothesis is derived from the presence in the text of several instances of an asyndeton, or omission of conjunctions, characterizing the Semitic and Hamitic languages, but not Indo-European—thus signaling an original Hebrew or Aramaic text underlying the Greek, from which Coptic Thomas was in turn translated; see P338 and Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts: "Asyndeton is, on the whole, contrary to the spirit of the Greek language ... but is highly characteristic of Aramaic".

The late camp
The late camp, on the other hand, dates Thomas some time after 100, generally in the mid-2nd century, and the theory of Nicholas Perrin argues that Thomas is dependent on the Syriac Diatessaron, which was composed shortly after 172.

Bart Ehrman, (in Jesus Apocalyptic Prophet of the Millennium) argues that the Jesus of history was a failed apocalyptic preacher, and that his fervent apocalyptic beliefs are recorded in the earliest Christian documents, Mark and the authentic Pauline epistles. The earliest Christians believed Jesus would soon return, and their beliefs are echoed in the earliest Christian writings.

Another argument for the late dating of Thomas is known as the criterion of multiple attestation. Darrel Bock, (in "Studying the Historical Jesus") claims that the more a theme is repeated in the early texts about Jesus, the more likely this theme can be traced to Jesus himself. And since apocalyptic texts are found in all four of the canonical gospels, he argues that it is quite likely that Jesus did indeed teach apocalyptically. Supporting this claim are the multitudes of Jewish apocalyptic texts that appeared from the late 3rd century BCE to the 2nd century CE. Many scholars believe that the impetus for these apocalyptic texts came from the crises produced by Babylon's conquest of Israel, the occupation of Israel by the Greeks, and then the occupation of Israel by the Romans. By the time of Jesus, many Jews believed very strongly in these apocalyptic themes which had been circulating among them for two hundred or more years. Furthermore, like Ehrman's argument, this argument points out that the earliest Christian texts of the New Testament (e.g., 1 Thessalonians) also have apocalyptic themes in them.

The last major argument for Thomas being later than the New Testament argues that Gnosticism is a later development, while the earliest Christianity, as evident in Paul's letters, was more Jewish than Gentile and focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus more than his words. In this connection, it is observed that the Jesus of Thomas does not seem very Jewish, and that its current form may reflect the work of 2nd-century Gnostic thought, such as the rejection of the physical world. Graham Stanton (The Gospels and Jesus, p. 129) finds in Thomas a Gnostic document: "removal of the Gnostic veneer will never be easy." However, the arguement for Gnosticism has begun to come under question. Unlike virtually all Gnostic texts the Gospel of Thomas does not contain a grand mythological cosmos, complex system of aeons, or even a continuous story. Also, there is no mention of the physical world being regarded as evil.

Notes: Should add dates from Erhman & Bock. Make reference to 'earlier' view of some sayings possibly being authentic.

Essenes
Since the 19th century attempts have been made to connect early Christianity and Pythagoreanism with the Essenes. It was suggested that Jesus of Nazareth was an Essene as many of His teachings directly correspond to similar teachings held by the Essenes. This leads to the concept that Christianity evolved from this sect of Judaism, with which it shared many ideas and symbols. According to Martin A. Larson, the now misunderstood Essenes were Jewish Pythagoreans who lived as monks. As vegetarian celibates in self-reliant communities who shunned marriage and family, they preached a coming war with the Sons of Darkness. As the Sons of Light, this reflected a separate influence from Zoroastrianism via their parent ideology of Pythagoreanism. According to Larson, both the Essenes and Pythagoreans resembled thiasoi, or cult units of the Orphic mysteries.John the Baptist is widely regarded to be a prime example of an Essene who had left the communal life, and it is thought they aspired to emulate their own founding Teacher of Righteousness who was crucified. However, J.B. Lightfoot's essay argues that attempts to find the roots of Essenism in Pythagoreanism and the roots of Christianity in Essenism are flawed. Authors such as Robert Eisenman present differing views that support the Essene/Early Christian connection.

== From Christianity in the First Century

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The various quests for the historical Jesus have received criticism from outside of and within the guild of historical biblical studies. Of the early portraits of Jesus, Albert Schweitzer wrote that "each individual created Him in accordance with his own character." Dale Allison, Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary believes that the psychological reality of historical Jesus research has many scholars confirming their earlier picture of Jesus. He writes that, "...if we hold a belief, we will notice confirming evidence. Disconfirming evidence will, to the contrary, make us uncomfortable, and so we will be more likely to miss, neglect, or critically evaluate it. This is the psychological reality within which we deploy our criteria."

John P. Meier points out that in the past the quest for the historical Jesus has often been motivated more by a desire to produce an alternate christology than a true historical search; as an example, he points out that the stated motivation of one of the Jesus Seminar members was to overthrow the "mistake called Christianity." The quest is also said to be too western, too white, too bourgeois, and too male.

The linguist Alvar Ellegård argued that theologians have failed to question Jesus' existence because of a lack of communication between them and other scholars, causing some of the basic assumptions of Christianity to remain insulated from general scholarly debate. According to the historian of religion R. Joseph Hoffmann, there has never been "a methodologically agnostic approach to the question of Jesus' historical existence."

Donald Akenson, Professor of Irish Studies at Queen's University, has argued that, with very few exceptions, the historians of Jesus have not followed sound historical practices. He believes that within the field there is an unhealthy reliance on consensus for propositions which should otherwise be based on primary sources or rigorous interpretation. He also identifies a disagrees with a downward dating trend regarding sources, and holds that some of the criteria being used are faulty. He argues that as an overwhelming majority of biblical scholars are employed in institutions whose roots are religious they are under immense pressure to theologize their historical work. It is only through considerable individual heroism, that many biblical historians have managed to maintain the scholarly integrity of their work.

John Meier, Professor of theology at University of Notre Dame, has also said "...I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they’re doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed..."

Biblical scholars have also been accused of having a strong disinclination towards communicating to the lay public things they know, but which would be unsettling to mainstream Christians. However, the Old Testament scholar Albrektson, while identifying some possible problems, says that a great many biblical scholars do practise their profession as an ordinary philological and historical subject, avoiding dogmatic assumptions and beliefs.

The New Testament scholar Nicholas Perrin has argued that since most biblical scholars are Christians, a certain bias is inevitable, but he does not see this as a major problem.

Rudolf Bultmann argued that historical research could reveal very little about the historical Jesus.