From Conflict to Recognition: Rethinking a Scholarly Paradigm in the Study of Christian Origins

AbstractThis article analyzes conflict as a major interpretative framework for early Christian texts. The language of conflict in these texts may be nothing more than a bellicose move to establish a certain form of religious identity and demarcate its boundaries. While conflicts existed between early Christ-believers, a focus on conflicts may distort our understanding of the past. Ancient texts also offer examples of respectful dialogue with those suspected of heresy and show that conflict is not the only option in religious dialogue.Keywords: religious dialogue; early Christian texts; Johannine literature; Clement of Alexandria; OrigenEarly Christ-followers were often engaged in conflicts with each other. While there is no denying this, the question deserves to be raised whether conflict has become too dominant a paradigm in the study of Christian origins. In this field, the notion of conflict provides a major interpretive framework within which the sources are placed into their historical contexts and their relationship to each other is explained.The point I seek to make here is that the emphasis on conflicts in the study of Christian origins has often resulted in one-sided and occasionally unwarranted explanations of the relationship between early Christ-groups.The problems with the so-called mirror-reading of texts addressing – and sometimes creating – situations of conflict have been pointed out before: we know “only one partner in a particular conversation”; authors of such texts may have misunderstood their opponents’ teachings; and scholars may have overinterpreted those texts as sources of conflict and of their opponents’ views.My discussion will be focused on scholarly constructions of conflicts in early Christian sources. In my view, the main problems with the conflictcentered paradigm in scholarly usage are that it tends to (1) magnify the scope and importance of conflicts that seem real; (2) invent conflicts in cases where evidence is spurious or non-existent; and (3) neglect (or downplay) other kinds of encounters with the other.This essay proceeds from a brief reflection on the presuppositions that may underlie the popularity of conflict in scholarly discourse to some Johannine examples illustrating what I mean by “magnification” and “invention” of conflicts.