Talk:Apostolic Age

As far as I can tell, this term or "Apostolic Era" is rarely used in the sense of Catholic and Orthodox apologetics, to refer to the entire period between Christ's comings (as this article uses it). It is used by Catholics as the Protestants also use it, to describe the period of time during which the Apostolic deposit was left once for all, to the Church.

The Catholic apologetic is not that we live now in the age of the apostles, the apostolic era, but that there is a line of succession, of trusteeship, that extends back from the present continuously all the way to the Apostolic age - and that therefore their church has preserved by the Holy Spirit the fullness of Apostolic authority. That is substantially different from what this article says, and therefore I've marked it with a disputed tag. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 01:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

What does this article need to become a good article? Vassyana (talk) 05:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Cooperative editing would be a start. 75.15.193.12 (talk) 20:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

More focus on the break with Jewish Christianity is needed. - Ret.Prof (talk) 17:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

See List of events in early Christianity. 75.15.207.88 (talk) 18:39, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Apostolic Age's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Harris":

• From Paul of Tarsus: Harris
• From List of events in early Christianity: Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.
• From Torah: Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.
• From El Greco: E. Harris, A Decorative Scheme by El Greco, 154
• From John the Baptist: Harris, Stephen L. (1985) Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield John 1:36–40
• From Josephus: Stephen L. Harris, Understanding the Bible, (Palo Alto: Mayfield, 1985).

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 19:41, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

See Talk:Split of early Christianity and Judaism#Merge. şṗøʀĸɕäɾłäů∂ɛ:τᴀʟĸ 23:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

In the section "The first gentile convert," I'd want the sentence "Some scholars assert that the Ethiopian eunuch..." to point to *which* scholars assert that. Maybe a [who?] tag there. But I don't know how to put that in, or whether it'd be appropriate in the first place, just starting here. :) If note #16 refers to such a source, that should be made clearer.Vondraco (talk) 03:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC) Vondraco

There's a whole section currently about the Apostle Thomas bringing Christianity to India. It's a charming idea, but not one you'd find any credible scholars today holding to. Perhaps the section has stayed up so long because at first glance it appears to be sourced. But on further examination this starts to break down.

The sources are as follows: (1) Medlycott, who supported the idea in 1905, (2) M. R. James, 1880, (3) Eusebius in the 300's AD, (4) Farquhar writing in 1926, (5) Smith writing in 1914, (6) and Brown in 1956.

If any of the sources given were to constitute reliable support for the St. Thomas story, it would be that of Brown. Unfortunately, the only copy for sale on Amazon costs $1024! So for me, personally checking pages 49-59 is out of the question. However, Leslie Brown has been quoted as saying, in this book itself, that the St. Thomas story is doubtful [1], while another source has Brown supporting the idea only that such a story is "possible" ([2]).

Even if Brown whole-heartedly supported the story, he's still writing 62 years ago, and it doesn't look like Brown did whole-heartedly support the story. Alephb (talk) 01:00, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

The article on Thomas the Apostle gives a history of Thomas's mission in India and the sources for this story, principally the 3rd century Acts of Thomas. The Saint Thomas Christians are a sect in India who trace their origins to Thomas. The story was believed to be true, but does it belong in the Apostolic Age article? - Epinoia (talk) 01:17, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

If someone wanted to write a section that said, "Here are various traditional accounts of what happened during the Apostolic Age", I'd have no objections to that as long as the article didn't go beyond what reliable sources can support. So "St. Thomas went to India" appears to be something we can't claim because there's no reliable scholarly sources on it that we've seen so far, but "Various traditions hold that St. Thomas went to India" would be a different matter. I probably won't write it myself because I'm not sure where we'd draw the line if we started collecting all kinds of traditional materials (there's loads of them), but I probably wouldn't object if somebody thought it was worth putting in. Ideally, it would be balanced out -- maybe a quick run-through of where all the apostles traditionally wound up, or something like that, rather than just focusing on one particular apostle's story. Alephb (talk) 05:01, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

- my feeling is that such information is outside the scope of this article and perhaps would be more suitable in articles such as the Apostles or the Great Commission - there is no separate article on the Spread of Christianity, only the sections in History of Christianity, Early Christianity and History of early Christianity - the article on Early centers of Christianity doesn't mention India - Epinoia (talk) 15:30, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

I've merged this article to Christianity in the 1st century per WP:BOLD; it's the exact same topic. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:02, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

At second thought, "Apostolic Age" may be more WP:COMMONNAME; moved content from that page. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:08, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Without a merger, there is no need to remove a large amount of sourced info, as happened here. I've re-inserted part of that info, since it is about the Apostolic Age. See also WP:RELART. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:14, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

The article should be merged with 1st century Christianity but not Early Christianity/History of early Christianity, which covers the period from the beginning of the apostolic age to the Council of Nicaea. However, Early Christianity and History of early Christianity should be merged with each other.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 22:58, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

For the larger discussion, please see: Talk:History of Christianity. PPEMES (talk) 09:43, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Editor2020: the info you added to this article, shouldn't it also be added to Christianity in the 1st century? (See also Talk:Christianity in the 1st century#Merge with Apostolic Age). Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:50, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

If/when the articles are merged everything should be merged into that article. Until then a link and brief summary (at that article) is adequate. Editor2020 (talk) 21:29, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:10, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I've merged this article to Christianity in the 1st century per Talk:Christianity in the 1st century#Merge with Apostolic Age. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:34, 12 August 2019 (UTC)