Intra-Christian Conflict

There was a great deal of conflict within early Christianity. Unfortunately, we know very few details about these early conflicts. Here's what we do know. Most of this information was drawn from Chapter 20 in the Ehrman

Names and Concepts
The main books of the New Testament which address intra-Christian conflict are:
 * James
 * The Epistle of James is a complicated text that very few scholars agree on.
 * This text is the least concerned (of the texts listed below) with false or corrupt teachings.
 * This text does, however, differ drastically with some of the ideas in the Pauline epistles.
 * James says, "A person is justified by works, not by faith alone" (James 2:24)
 * Whereas Paul says, in Romans, "A person is justified by faith apart from the works prescribed by the law." (Romans 3:28)
 * However, some scholars propose that James and Paul could mean different things with the words 'faith' and 'works' and they may be proposing similar things, just with different wording.
 * 2 Peter
 * 2 Peter is believed to be one of the later texts in this section, as there was no reference to it for most of the first three centuries of Christianity.
 * Within the text, there are references to myths and unorthodox interpretations of scripture which elad scholars to believe that 2 Peter was written as a reaction to Gnostic Christians
 * 2 Peter also appeals to the authority of Paul, perhaps because Gnostics looked to Paul for authority and the author of 2 Peter wished to show that Paul would not have supported gnostic belief.
 * Jude
 * Jude is primarily concerned with the false teachers who he believes to have 'invaded' Christianity.
 * Jude, unfortunately for historical scholars, does not go in depth on the particular beliefs of his enemies, instead resorting to creative name calling
 * The Johanine Epistles
 * The Johanine Epistles refers to 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. They are related to the Gospel of John, but most scholars believe that they were not written by the same author.
 * These letters are believed to have been written by the same author, to the same community
 * 1 John seems to be an open letter to a whole community
 * 2 John seems to be a personal letter to that same community
 * 3 John seems to be a personal letter to an individual within that same community
 * Most scholars agree that these letters were written in response to the secession of a group who believed in a docetic kind of Christology. 
 * Docetic christology believes that Jesus was fully divine and therefore could not have had any true mortal body
 * These secessionists were refered to as 'antichrists', which meant literally that they were 'opposed to Christ'

Other useful information

 * In 1873, a Greek scholar rediscovered the Didache, which was a formative christian text that many thought had been lost.
 * The didache was a set of ethical instructions for early Christians, which included instructions about wandering 'apostles' who may have been swindling early communities.
 * An apocryphal document which is related to 2 Peter is the Acts of Peter. The Acts of Peter concerns Peter's magical and divine duels with the magician Simon Magus
 * They trade miracle for miracle, with Paul ultimately winning the people over and proving the power of God. Simon Magus is stoned to death.