@Whatsisface
The importance of cosmogenesis to the early Christians was the distinguishing factor for a ”true prophet“. We argue over so many things yet what really mattered in the times of the apostles, —what separated the men from the boys, was, knowledge of how the cosmos began.
You probably never heard that before. Look here, this found in the Recognitions of Clement and attributed to Peter.
” the True Prophet is necessary for every matter of the Fear of God, for he will tell us all these things, as they are, and how correctly to believe concerning everything…
On account of this, before everything it is appropriate for us to seek the True Prophet, because without him it is impossible for anything true to be revealed to human beings.”
“before everything it ought to be inquired what is the First Cause, which is faultless of everything that came into being—if it did come into being—and what it is and from what;
according to the Tradition of the True Prophet. He alone knows how the things that came into being came into being, how the future things come into being,”
I posit the “true prophet” in the mind of Peter, James, and John, was the “Teacher of Righteousness” around 100 BC, according to the Dead Sea Scrolls, who later Jewish-Christians thought returned as the apostle Paul, which is why his epistles were canonized.
There is a lot in Paul’s epistles relating to cosmogenesis that has been distorted by christian orthodoxy, for example, the sophia mythology is translated in a way to avoid any association with gnostic tenets.
Compare the following translation to the common one found in Bibles today. The one below is completely compatible with gnostic tenets of cosmogenesis in the Nag Hammadi but you would never know it because the translators don’t want you to know it. It is too gnostic so they translate it differently.
”Yet among the mature we do speak of Sophia, though it is not the Sophia of this aeon or of the archons of this aeon, who are doomed to perish. But we speak of the holy Sophia, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the aeons for our glory. None of the archons of this aeon understood this.’ (1 cor 2:6-8)
For comparison, found in Bibles today.
”But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this,
But orthodoxy will tell you that there are no secrets and that the wisdom is found in the Gospel stories interpreted literally as historical events, plain for everyone to see for themselves. Yeah, right! (Sarcasm)