The study of Christian origins should in no way differ from the study of an
ything past and, yet, historical studies of Christianity continue to "privi
lege" the data with imagined origins. In contrast to such imaginative ficti
ons, critical historiography is based on human events presumed actually to
have occurred. The productions of and, consequently, the explanations for s
uch data instantiate both the material and the mental environments of human
beings. Whereas the common constraints of biology are clear and those of c
ognition are increasingly so (although both are traditionally discounted in
accounts of Christian beginnings), historically valid theories of socio-cu
ltural contingencies remain contested, as does the relationship between the
se three domains. Since the earliest historical evidence for "Christian" gr
oups is socio-cultural, i.e., textual, might these texts be better understo
od historically as themselves positive data for a plurality of Christian so
cial formations rather than as historiographical documents containing posit
ivistic data about Christian origins? In this way, it is possible to access
real activities of real human beings in the past in their actual relations
hips.