Truth Unites - Is Mary's Assumption a Gnostic Legend?

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

In this video I respond to William Albrecht's criticisms of my work on  the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary, focusing on the timing and  context of the emergence of this belief in the early church.   The original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMhlrM8Zb3M  My dialogue with Cameron: https://youtu.be/_3Vqxd6PvMA Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

I've been doing some work lately on the bodily assumption of Mary. This is one of those really important areas where Protestant Christians differ from various other traditions. And one of the big points of difference is, where does this belief come from? And then when did it come into church history? So I've put out two videos recently. Well, not put out. One of them I put out on my channel. And then Cameron Bertuzzi, Capturing Christianity had me on his channel.

I'll link to both of those if you want to see kind of my full answer to this question. But in this video, I just want to follow up on a couple of points where I think there is some confusion out there about the timeline and then also about the nature of some of these early texts. So hopefully I can bring some clarity to some points where I think there is some confusion. So what we'll do is three things. First, actually four things. Four sections here. First, I'll give just a very brief general sketch of the timeline of the chronology for when this belief emerges. Secondly, I'll talk about the earliest text in which the bodily assumption of Mary is referenced,

the book of Mary's repose. People put a lot of weight on this text, but very few people have read it, so I'm really excited to kind of bring it into the discussion a little bit so people understand what they're referencing. Thirdly, I want to talk about a fourth century text just after that called the six, well, it's a set of text, the six books, Dormission, Apocryphon, I'll explain what that is. And then, so hopefully by that point, you'll get a kind of the idea of this video is to give you a rough sketch, kind of a drive-by sketch of how this belief is developing in the early church, really outside the early church, and then comes into the church in the fifth century, and I'll talk about that. And then the last thing is kind of summing up, I want to locate my interpretation and my

comments in relation to William Albrecht's videos. He's put out two videos by way of critique, so I want to respond to him. Now, Trent Horn also put out a video response. He and I are going to be having some kind of other engagements at some point, so I'll just save my comments until then rather than do a, but we've done a bunch of a video back and forth, so I don't want to do another one of those. So I'll talk to him in person sometime, hopefully. First, let's just give a general sketch here.

In my initial video, I'd quoted some of the recent scholars like Stephen Shoemaker, Brian Daly, and then some of the older scholars working in this area like Ludwig, Ott, Walter Berghardt, Juniper Carroll, etc. And basically showing they're consistent, and most of these scholars are Catholic, and they're consistent in saying the same thing, that the emergence of historical evidence concerning the assumption in the church is late 5th century, 450 to 500 that rough time period, right after the Council of Chalcedon. For example, I'll put up these quotes. I won't read through all of these. I've already gone through all of this. You can see in the emboldened parts here, this is the Catholic scholar,

Ryan Daly, he talks about the century after Childsadon. Here are some summary statements from Shoemaker's book where you can see the same time frame. Again, I won't read through all these. If you want this, if this is your first time joining in, you might benefit from getting the first video where I go through all this. And then I just observed that it's the same with, you know, the older scholars, Ludwig Gott, Walter Burkhardt, etc. Now, what happens, this is why I thought maybe I could help clarify a few things.

People get confused here because they hear of the date of this third. century texts, probably third century, called the Book of Mary's Repose, and they're saying, aha, so maybe the scholarship has changed. Maybe now they're moving it back from the fifth century to the third century, or maybe Shoemaker has changed his mind. I've heard someone say, or maybe Orkland is misrepresenting Shoemaker by just pulling out quotes out of context or something like that. So this is where I want to try to bring some clarity. Shoemaker has not changed his mind, his position in his 2002 book on the Dormission and Assumption Narratives is the same as his position in his 2016 book on the emergence of Marian devotion. And I'm not misrepresenting him.

The passages that I quote from Shoemaker are the summary passages in the introduction, the conclusion, and then sometimes in a chapter summary where he'll say, basically like, here's what I'm arguing, or here's what I've just established or something like that. And then I, I, emailed Chewaker before any of this happened to ask him to watch my video and confirm that he felt I was representing his position fairly because I sensed that while reading his book that he was trying to be fair, you know, non-prejudicial either way. And as a Protestant apologist, I really, even though I'm doing, I've talked about this in my video, the danger of apologetics. Even though I'm doing apologetics, I really desire in the depths of my soul to be fair, to be honest and accurate,

to do the golden rule, you know, in how you engage. intellectually and treat other people as you'd want to be treated. So I emailed him and asked him to you know, said, is this fair to what you're trying to say? And he very graciously gave his response, saying it was fine. So, but anybody who's skeptical about any of that, don't take my word for it. Go read the book. I always put up the page numbers on the screen so you can go verify. Now, the, so here's what people need to understand, though, and why Schumacher, for example, in the space of one book when he's saying late fifth century, of the narratives, and then he's dating some of the earliest of the palm tradition narratives,

which is a certain tradition of narratives about Mary's assumption, to, he says, third century, possibly earlier, you know, and he cuts it off at the end of the fourth century for this first text, the book of Mary's repose. Those are not at odds, okay? There's a difference between emergence in the historical record of traditions in the church, on the one hand, and the appearance of Gnostic legends or other heterodox narratives outside the church that come into historical view later, but clearly date back earlier. So, for example, let's go through some of these texts. And this is, by the way, when I was talking with Cameron, I was very careful to talk about Dormission traditions in the church. The late 5th century date, you know, daily,

Brian Daly talks about the 5th century as this meteoric rise in interest in Mary, and it's after you get the Theotokos label at the Council of Ephesus in 431, there's this massive uptick of interest in Mary within the church. That's in the church. Before the 5th century, the texts that come into view later, but date back there before the 5th century, are not in the church. These are heterodox texts. So let me show that. You know, I I think what people do is they're really eager to push that fifth century date back. And they're so eager that they'll latch on to little statements about these Gnostic legends as though that is changing the time frame, but they've never read the Gnostic legend,

and they don't realize what it is. So let's talk about these legends that proceed outside the church, the fifth century entrance into the church of the notion of a bodily assumption of Mary. First, let's talk about the book of Mary's repose. This is the text. I mentioned the time frame earlier. Shoemaker gives the cutoff of late fourth century, probably third century, and then he just leaves it open, possibly second century. This is one of the things people latch onto and kind of misrepresent him. They act as though he's certainly saying it is the second century, but he's just leaving it open somewhere in there.

Now, what I pointed out is that this is generally regarded as a Gnostic legend. It has an angel Christology, for example. Mary calls Christ at one point the great cherub of light who dwelt in my womb. That's the label for Christ throughout the text. The great cherub or the great cherub of light. The Christ angel figure, Jesus, says at one point, I am the third that was created and I am not the son. So in this text, Jesus, this is a non-Trinitarian text.

Jesus is an angel. It's an angel Christology. And then it's basically Gnostic. There's all kinds of Gnostic elements to the text. There's a Gnostic creation myth within it. And the interest in Mary in this text is not for her virginity, her godliness, something like that. It's in her as the possessor of secret knowledge that Jesus entrusts to her, these cosmic mysteries that she comes to obtain. And so Mary is not a godly person in this story.

it has all kinds of scandalous, shocking details about Mary. There's a passage where Joseph is rebuking her for failing to preserve her virginity. He says, why didn't you guard your virginity? And then just after that, he's wondering whether he himself impregnated her while intoxicated. He says, but I have thought in my heart, perhaps I had intercourse with you while drunk. Later on, Mary is depicted as afraid of dying because of her sin. so just before she dies, she says to the bystanders, and because of this I fear, because I did not believe in my God for even one day. Behold, I will tell you about my sin.

And then she narrates this episode of disbelief during her flight to Egypt with Joseph and several of his children. So you can read through the whole narrative. I think it's online last time I checked, but it's in the Shoemaker also as a translation of it in the first appendix to his 2002 book. And it's very similar to the later Palm tradition narratives where Mary is reunited with the apostles, just before she dies. Christ returns to receive her soul. A lot of these narratives in this tradition are very similar framework. There's basically her body is buried, and then there's a plot by the Jewish leadership to steal the body, and then that plot is foiled miraculously.

And then finally Christ returns to take her body to heaven, to be reunited with her soul. and there's all kinds of other bizarre things. There's the apostles all with, take a tour of hell, you know, just going to, but without getting into all the, the portrayal of Mary is the most interesting point for our purposes. Now, what I just summarized, you know, I've gotten used to people just relentlessly attacking me

and questioning me overly skeptical. I'm like, man, I really, I'm not lying. Like these books do, I'm not making up these quotes, you know. So let me just, I'm just learning to document things so people will not accuse me of things. Here's how Shoemaker summarizes the narrative, quote, We find a Mary who openly confesses that she had once sinned and a Joseph who sounds a bit like an angry, possibly a lecherous drunk. This Mary is not the mother of God, and said she is the mother of the great cherub of light.

The Book of Marries repose thus depicts her glorious departure from this world and belief in her intercessory powers against a strikingly heterodox backdrop. drop. Now, so this is why I'm trying to bring some clarity to this and just help people with this. This is the text that people are using to try to stretch that fifth century date back. You see the problem? The fifth century date has to do with a tradition that we have evidence for in the church. These are Gnostic legends that come up later. So the text, the actual physical text we have is much later, but there's good reason to think they date back earlier, but they're not in the church. They're not traditions in the church. That's why they don't contradict the late fifth

century timeline. But people are so desperate to push that fifth century timeline back that they'll latch onto these texts, not even reading them or knowing what they're about, not even realizing it's a Gnostic legend. And this is why, though, I do not myself make this argument, but you can find lots of people. It's kind of a classical argument to say that the bodily assumption of Mary has origins in Gnosticism and from Gnosticism then infiltrated into the church. R.P.C. Hansen represents kind of a typical claim along these lines. He says the assumption can be shown to be a doctrine which manifestly had its origin among Gnostic heretics. Now that's a classic view you can find out there. I myself don't make that claim because it's harder to prove historical causation and

influence. What's the relationship between the earlier texts and the later texts? I know enough about history and historical study to know you have to be very careful. So I can say, I think that's a very plausible view. That's certainly what it looks like. You know, in my talking with Cameron, I basically said, it's really hard to be dogmatic about this, but that's certainly what it would kind of a superficial appearance of what the evidence seems to indicate. It's just hard to be to nail that down for sure. So I don't say for sure.

But what we can say is the earliest text in history referencing a bodily essential. assumption of Mary is a Gnostic text. How that text then influences the subsequent development that, you know, you don't need to nail that down exactly to see that much. All right. And now, let me say another thing. I am being consistent with the scholarship on this point. In his response video, William Albrecht and his guest were just sort of laughing off the idea of a possible origins in Gnosticism as a preposterous claim. And William claims that the scholars in this field project that idea. You've got the great scholars like Shoemaker.

By the way, what is Shoemaker? Is he Eastern Orthodox? I don't know what he is. He's not Catholic. I know that. I thought he was Anglican, but I could. Okay. He might be Anglican. And I know he's not Catholic. And I emphasize that because he is a scholar, and even daily, who is Catholic, is a very fair scholar.

Both of them will tell you that the belief in the assumption does not have its origins in Gnosticism. Now, he's right about Daly. Daly thinks, as we saw from the quote elsewhere, and he's stuck to this view throughout his career, that it's the anti-Chalcedonians in the fifth century where this idea emerges.

But he's wrong about Shoemaker. It's a really weird claim from William there, because Shoemaker is so clear on this point, and I even quoted him in my original video as saying, this earliest evidence for the veneration of Mary appears to come from a markedly heterodox theological milieu. Now, when he's saying, what's the markedly heterodox theological milieu? Well, on the

previous page, he's talking about the book of Mary's repose. And he calls it a text that is riddled with concepts and vocabulary that would be more at home in a Gnostic Christian text. Now, he says this over and over and over throughout his 2016 book and throughout his 2002 book about both Marian devotion and the assumption. He's careful not to make an overly dogmatic claim about origins and influence and exactly what caused what. But in terms of just the chronology, the time frame, and what it seems to suggest, he says this over and over.

Let me just give examples because I've learned. Again, I've got to document these things so people don't accuse me of being dishonest. Here's from the introduction to the book, summarizing the argument. Again, all my quotes are like summative quotes. He says the prominence of Marian Piety in certain early Christian apocryphal writings is perhaps a sign Marian Piety first developed in milieu outside the purview of the Orthodox Church authorities in heterodox and other theologically marginal communities. The sharply heterodox nature of some of these texts would appear to confirm such a hypothesis.

In the conclusion of the book, he summarizes the argument as entailing a strong possibility that Marian piety and veneration may have first emerged and flourished within heterodox Christian communities. In another article, speaking about the book of Mary's repose, he says, This ancient Christian apocryphon dating to the third century in all likelihood is fairly rife with heterodoxies. The peculiar theological backdrop against which this narrative of Mary's miraculous departure from the world unfolds suggests that her earliest veneration may have emerged within a theologically heterodox milieu that understood Christ as a great angel and looked to esoteric knowledge for salvation from the demiurge at death. The more orthodox dormition narratives of the early Middle Ages frequently expressed their discomfort

with these heterodoxies of the earlier tradition. And their authors explain that in order to appropriate these traditions, it was necessary to purge the ancient narratives of their doctrinal errors in editorial cleansing that is quite apparent in the earliest transmission of these late. legends during the 6th and 7th centuries. With regard to the bodily assumption specifically, at the very beginning of his 2002 books, same thing, just the same thing. On page 8 of that book, if you want to look at this, I won't read all these.

He talks about widespread agreement in the scholarship that the heterodox themes of these early narratives like the Book of Marriage or Pose indicate they did not arise within the Orthodox, but rather outside of the proto-Orthodox Christian, and he uses the term Gnosticism there. I'll read you one quote. Here's from the end of the book. He's basically saying, no, the Book of Mary's Repose did not originate from a Jewish-Christian context.

We have instead sought to align the earliest palm narratives with ancient Gnostic Christianity, a context that we believe is a better fit than Jewish Christianity. Several doctrines espouse in these narratives suggest this connection, including their emphasis upon secret, salvithic knowledge, demigurgy, and an angel Christology. Now, I could go on and on here, but hopefully you can see Shoemaker's position quite plainly. And unfortunately, there's just an enormous amount of misrepresentation of the scholarship on this question, whether Shoemaker or others, among those who want to defend the bodily assumption of Mary's apostolic. What they'll do is latch on to these little snippets here or there, some kind of reference to something

possibly going back to the second century, and all of a sudden you've got, oh, the assumption does positively go back to the second century in the church. You're like, wait a second. He said, he said maybe second century, probably third, and this is a Gnostic legend. It's not in the church. And those points are sort of lost in the shuffle. Similarly, with other points that William and his guests were making about Jacob of Surrog, Ephraim, their supposed affirmations of a bodily assumption, what people will do is they'll quote Shoemaker and the other scholars on when they're in agreement with them, but on so many of these points, he's opposing those ideas. Interestingly, Shoemaker himself notes the prejudicial tendency of some Catholic scholarship in this area.

Shoemaker is very balanced because he calls it out on both sides. He calls out the anti-Catholic prejudice of some scholarship that puts the assumption way too late, but he also faults the tendency in Catholic scholarship, at least some aspects of Catholic scholarship. And I think we could include Catholic apologetics as well to read modern Catholic doctrines such as the assumption back into the early texts. Here's what he says about that. Such an approach finds passages from early Christian literature that seem reminiscent of modern Catholic doctrines, and despite the clear absence of such beliefs from early Christian literature when read on its own terms, and the obvious contextual difficulties of these readings, on this basis it is often

alleged that the Marian dogmas of modern Catholicism also belonged to the ancient church. These apologetic exercises fail to shed any light on the actual emergence of Mary and piety. That's one of those many passages in Shoemaker that the Catholic apologist won't quote to you. You got to buy the book and read the book to see that quote. And there is this, I'm sorry to say, this aggressive twisting of the data. Even the Wikipedia page of the Assumption of Mary is different today as I record this video than it was one month ago. people are scrambling to make it as positive as possible about the assumption in the historical sketch section.

And I don't know if that's in connection to these discussions or other things I just know. Right now, as of this moment, the Wikipedia page on Mary's bodily assumption is also misrepresentative of the scholarship, though it was not one month ago. It also, as of this today, is a lot worse grammar than it did a month ago. So it's unfortunate to see that misrepresentation. My intent here is to try to bring clarity for people following in this discussion so they can see the truth. And the truth is, the earliest attestation of Mary's assumption in history is in a Gnostic text. Okay, let's talk about the next text that predates the 5th century that we see here, set of text, the 6 Bookstore Mission Apocryphan.

Now this probably dates to the late 4th century. this is a set of texts that's associated with the Cholarydians, which was a group very vigorously opposed by Epiphanius, a fourth-century bishop. Epiphanius has come into the discussion in various ways already. So one of the ways we can tell that the third and fourth century legends that we see, and there's not a lot of them, these are really the two big ones, are outside the church,

is not just that we look back and we read them, and you realize, oh, this is like Gnostic, This is not good theology. This is not Orthodox. But also we see how people in the church at that time were responding to these texts. And Epiphanius is responding to the Cholarydians, and he's very clear. And basically, now Shoemaker, he thinks Epiphanius is being a bit too strict against the Coloridians, and he thinks the Marian devotion, perhaps it already made some inroads into

orthodox circles during the fourth century. but Epiphanius himself clearly thinks the Coloridians are heretical, and his specific complaint against them is Marialitri, worshiping Mary. Now, this is what I want to observe about Epiphanius that is so interesting, is he does not suggest at any point in his opposition to the Coloridians' practice of making sacrifices to Mary and so forth, that there's some kind of distinct practice of,

venerating Mary that is different from what they are doing. He in no way says, hey, you guys are going too far. You should practice Hyperdulia, not Latreya. He does not seem to have that category. He's fiercely protective of Mary for her integrity, her virginity, he affirms perpetual virginity, and for her honor. But he does not construe that honoring of Mary is anything beyond just honoring her as a virgin. There's no sense of bowing to Mary, praying to Mary, and so forth. Here's how Shoemaker puts it. Epiphanius instead makes clear that the role of the saints in the church should be limited to serving as examples of Christian excellence, and they are not themselves to become objects of devotion. And then in the context, I mean, if you read through, he's very,

the way he reasons against the Coloridians, you know, what he's opposing is today what could classify as mere veneration, not worship. So he quotes John 2.11, where Jesus says, Woman, what does this have to do with me? And he calls us a prophecy. He says, he called her woman as if by prophecy because of the schisms and sex that were to appear on earth. Otherwise, some might stumble into the nonsense of the sect from excessive awe of the saint. So excessive awe right there, that's within the object of his criticism. At another point, he says, they must not say we honor the queen of heaven, as though that would justify their practices to her. You know, in other words, what he's opposing is what today could classify as veneration, and he himself never makes a distinction between what they are doing versus veneration.

What he talked about is just honor Mary as a virgin. What that shows more basically is that in Epiphanis' day in the 4th century, the theology associated with the Coloridians, which is associated with the sixth bookstore mission apocene, which is this other text that has an assumption is being opposed by people within the church. That's what distinguishes this from the 5th century date that the scholarship is advancing. I hope that makes sense. And then as I pointed out in my initial video, Epiphanius is very clearly saying nobody knows her end. And in my book, I'm writing a book on all this right now. I talk a lot more about some of the other passages in Epiphanius, some of the other issues.

But that's basically how we could sum up. it up. So third and fourth century, you've got heterodox legends and texts that are opposed by people in the church that are outside of the realm of Orthodox theology. And then in the fifth century, again, once you get the theotokos label at Ephesus, which is originally a Christological label, but it starts spiraling up all of this interest in Mary, what daily calls meteoric rise. Okay, so that's the general sketch. Hopefully that helps people out there, helps people understand why to, you know, why do Daly and Shoemaker and all these people say late 5th century and how does that coordinate with the earlier legends and so forth?

And again, to be absolutely clear, because I've learned, no matter how clear you are, sometimes people will still misconstrue what you say. What we're saying is it's the late 5th century that it's in the church. And before that, it's outside the church. Hopefully that's clear. Okay, let me now sum up this historical sketch that I've offered there for where it kind of comes in, by drawing it into contact with William Albrecht's two videos that he put out criticizing me. Now, I was really underwhelmed by these videos. I didn't really get a response

to the main issue here, the historical timeline. So let me put up the daily quote again. You can see the emboldened words there. He's saying the origins and original intent of the story of Mary's death and entry into glory is post-Chalcedonian, the century after. You see the word after there. Now, with that quote, William, in his response, just completely ignores the time frame. And he's just talking about other things, like whether it's from the Chalcedonians or the anti-Chalcedonians and that kind of stuff. He's just completely missing the point. And same with the Ott quote and others. With the Shoemaker quotes, which I'll put up here on the screen again, and you can see the same time frame. With these, same kind of thing. He doesn't really deal with these. He just sets the other

passage in Shoemaker about the Book of Mary's Repose, for example, that goes back earlier. as though that neutralized these quotes. But again, as we've seen, that is confusing a legend outside the church that looks gnostic with the traditions that we have clear historical evidence for that are inside the church. That's the other difference is the earlier legends. We don't have evidence for them in the third century. We have evidence for them much later, but they look like they go back to the third century. So that's another little wrinkle in all this.

But I'm trying to keep it clear so we don't get lost. The main point is, inside the church, fifth century, outside the church, heterodox, third and fourth century. Maybe leave a little wiggle room. Maybe somewhere in the fourth century, it's starting to make it, you know, but generally that's the idea. Okay. So basically, you know, Williams videos go into a lot of, there's a lot of rhetoric, high over-the-top rhetoric and insults. He's going into all kinds of other things about the view of Mary in the reformers and in Jan Husse. the fact that the Eastern traditions agree with the Catholic doctrine all things like this that are

really kind of off topic. The main point is, is this true? Does this go back to the apostles? Do we have any reason to think that in the first century, Mary actually was assumed? And if you listen carefully, there's really no response that I can tell to that. And there's a sort of just stubborn fact that remains here on the table, after all the dust is settled, that we don't have any tradition inside the Christian Church of Mary's assumption for hundreds of years after the event allegedly happened. Rather, the first attestation of it seems to come in heterodox groups. And that's a major problem. One other thing I need to point out is that William's videos routinely misrepresent my position. The most egregious example of this, which is

kind of funny, is his lead-off comment is a critique of me. This is what he says. Gavin says that he never heard of the bodily assumption of Mary. He didn't hear of the dormition of the bodily assumption. Four minutes in on Cameron Batuz's channel, he says that until he studied Catholicism. Now, let me ask you, Subdeacon, very clearly, the belief of this does not hinder or rely upon any definition that any poll. made in 1950, does it? Not at all. Not at all. So then he uses that observation to sort of insult my knowledge of the Eastern traditions, and he's done that elsewhere as well, and he's claimed, you know, he says that I'm disrespecting them. It's a bit disrespectful to not understand

how firmly built into the faith of the apostolic churches that this really is. So I'm watching this video and I'm like, you know, just trying to remember, like I have no memory of saying that. So I'm just, As with so many of his criticisms, I'm just listening and I have no context to try to understand what is he even talking about. So since you set the time frame, I go back and I watch the clip and this is what I discover. And I didn't hear about it until I actually started to look in to Catholicism itself. And so how do you mix up me and Cameron, you know, especially in the leading comment. We don't look alike. He's got a lot better camera and Mike quality than me. And this was, that was the first thing that William said in his critique. That was the first thing that we got into

in the interview after Cameron's personal update. That's like the first thing we got into. So, and then, so William and his friend were kind of going on and on about how, you know, how do people not realize, you're disrespecting these other traditions? How do people not realize that the Catholic, that the assumption of Mary is not just Catholic, it's also Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, etc. But within 30 seconds of what they miscited me as saying, what it was Cameron saying, here's what I actually said. I was making the same point as them. And I'm going to be mentioning the Catholic doctrine a lot. I do want to be clear up front that the Catholic view is extremely similar to the view of Mary's final end

in a lot of the Eastern traditions like Eastern Orthodoxy, for example. And that's something I've talked about over and over in my video. So it's really hard to understand how that level of misrepresentation can happen. I will assume it's not a deliberate misrepresentation, but the alternative to that is that he's just not paying careful attention. And this is something that I observe frequently in his response videos. He does not represent others' views accurately. He's not careful to give an accurate representation of the position he is criticizing. I remember in the purgatory videos he would put out, you know, I think I counted five or six times where he would make a claim about my sources. And every single time he was wrong. He's just not telling the truth about me.

He would say, oh, Ortland got this from this person or that scholar or whatever. And every single time, I'm like, no, I didn't get it from them. I never read that person or I didn't get it from them or whatever. And so anyway, what happens is, I point this out to William. To his credit, he noted it in a pinned comment. So that was good. But then in his response, he just uses the occasion to further insult you with this over-the-top rhetoric about, you know, ah, well, this was the one mistake my video made, unlike your video, which was filled with mistakes. You know, it's just like, give me a break. So I've got lots of other things I kind of had written down here to maybe go into. I'm just not even going to. I don't want to pile on. And I

don't, I really want the overall focus of my channel to be positive, to be about meeting needs for viewers, not just defending myself. So my comments here are not just to attack someone, but it's because people are watching along and following this discussion. And a lot of people I know are really questioning about this issue, and they're not sure what is the truth about this. And so I offer my comments here out of sincere concern for the truth and for the people who are seeking the truth who are following this discussion.

Because to sum it all up, I would say that at the end of the day, I am sincerely persuaded, deeply, confidently, persuaded that the historical evidence is overwhelmingly against the bodily assumption of Mary being either an apostolic teaching or an actual first-century event. Is it from Gnosticism? Well, it's hard to say that with certainty. It's hard to nail down exactly, you know, the trajectory of influence and causation and what influenced what. But we can certainly say this much, the earliest written attestation we have for the assumption of Mary comes in a Gnostic text. And Marian devotion also first appears in what, to use shoemaker's term, a markedly heterodox theological milieu. So any way you interpret the causal relationship there, the fact

remains, the emergence into the church looks more 5th century and the 3rd and 4th century attestations of both the assumption and Marian devotion seem more outside the church. And so it's not hard. You know, you can understand why people see this as a plausible hypothesis that, well, maybe it went from outside the church and then it was in the church. You know, maybe it came infiltrating in from heterodoxy into the church. And I think that's kind of the superficial obvious way to look at it, but it's hard to be 100% sure. But whatever you say about that, I would just reiterate my broader summary, the historical evidence is overwhelmingly against the bodily assumption of Mary being either apostolic

teaching or an actual historical event that transpired in the first century. So I offer all of that, hoping that will be helpful, bring clarity on areas where I can tell people are out there. They're not, they're maybe confused about some things, or they're just not aware of some things, they're not aware of what is the book of Mary's repose, what are we talking about here? Is it second century? Is it fifth century?

That those kinds of questions. Hopefully this will give people just a clear outline of kind of how to think about this emergence of this idea in the early church. So may the Lord bless you. Those who are wrestling with this, may the Lord honor your study and your anxiety as you're working through this. I know what that feels like. That's not fun to be kind of churning through the uncertainty of these things.

But the Lord will guide you in your thinking as you sincerely seek the truth. So the Lord bless you. All right. Thanks for watching, everybody. Let me know what you think in the comments.