The Forgotten Creed

Short thoughts: I have nearly 1700 words on my blog. I really considered stopping the book about five different times. I also considered asking for a refund from Audible because they have an easy refund of books you don't like. But I didn't. I bought the book and I am reviewing it so you don't have to.

There are a couple big problems with the book, the largest is that I can't figure out who Patterson is trying to persuade, because his argument would be unpersuasive to most, even though I think he may be right about the larger point that Gal 3:28 was derived from an early baptismal creed. The introduction dismisses several books attributed to Paul as pseudonymous writing. Others do as well, I don't particularly have a problem with that take. But if, as Patterson suggests, Paul was not actually sexist or in favor of slavery because Paul wasn't really the author of 1 Timothy, that doesn't really help solve the problem for people that are going to take seriously 1 Timothy regardless of whether Paul wrote it.

Another good example of the problems of the book is that Patterson argues that the books of Acts was likely written to both counter Marcion but affirm supersessionism. If this is the case, Acts could not have been written any earlier than 150-160. Many scholars date the book of Acts of the Apostles to around 80 or 90. If the earlier dating, which is more commonly held by most scholars is accurate, the whole argument around Marcion co-opting Paul and Acts being written to counter parts of Marcionism but to affirm a type of supersessionism completely falls apart. There are several other places where odd datings also make his argument difficult. But the Acts one is the worst. Even if I agreed with the underpinnings (Paul's attempt as cross ethnic table fellowship in Antioch was a failure and Acts was in part of repudiation of it), which I don't, the dating makes the argument unworkable.

There are a number of problems with the book and I can't recommend it. But if you want to read my longer comments, you can go to my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-forgotten-creed/