The influence of some ancient philosophical and religious traditions on the soteriology of early Christianity

Abstract

When reading the Bible in an independent way, i.e., not through the lenses of any official Church dogma, one is amazed by the many voices that come through to us. Add to this variety the literaiy finds from Nag Hammadi, as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls, then the question now confronting many spiritual pilgrims is how it came about that these obviously diverse theologies, represented in the socalled Old and New Testaments, were moulded into only one "orthodox" result. In what way and to what degree were the many Christian groups different and distinctive from one another, as well as from other Jewish groups? Furthermore, what was the influence of other religions, Judaism, the Mysteries, Gnostics and Philosophers on the development, variety of groups and ultimately 021 the consolidation of "orthodox" soteriology?