Jeffro...an important consideration:
"Theological claims are a subset of paranormal claims."
Mephis I agree with your perspective as an accurate assessment of the state of “proto orthodoxy”. Early Christianity has to be divorced from the modern reading of the past on the basis of conventional expectations. First century Roman christianity was characterised by a loose association of mainly poor and illiterate hopefuls who believed not only in various doctrines but also different christs. (The few rich members notably contributing “love feasts” which made the idea of the FDS a plausible backdrop for the all too familiar illustration).
By the end of the fourth/ early fifth century, Christianity became orthodox or “catholic” by virtue of Roman decree and it was eventually enforced by punishment for those who refused to believe the state determined doctrines. Along with this codifying of the religion, (albeit still evolving, including the Bible canon) came denunciation of all the pagan teachings and destruction of proto-orthodox and pagan ‘heresy’ which had gone before it which were the ingredients of the blend of ideas which made the Roman Church in the first place.
The life of the soul after death (in this case borrowed most directly from Mithraism and hence from Persia and India) became the key "Catholic" propaganda weapon to keep the flock loyal.
I went to a lecture by Karen Armstrong recently in which she mentioned the importance of the city of Alexandria on the Nile Delta after the time of Alexander the Great in the third century BCE. In historical terms this was a significant and vibrant melting pot of Egyptian, Greek and Jewish beliefs within the Classical world.
Reading up on the subject I realised this is a critical period and location for the fusing of the three strands of culture. Surprisingly up to half of the population of Alexandria was Jewish, and as cosmopolitans, they adopted the Greek and 'pagan' culture of the leading lights of the city, a distinct divergence from the sanitized retrospective view of Jewish orthodoxy. Egypt possibly contributing the immortal soul idea to the religious matrix since the significant Greek perspective was the story of Hades; the gloomy abode of the dead. What is certain is that Classical Greek culture crept into the late Jewish ideas which later were diffused into the Christian cults of the first and second centuries.
I wonder if “sprit” was a Hebrew convention conflated with the Egyptian “soul” perhaps in 3rd cent. BCE at Alexandria?