Last weeks’ lecture concerned the topic, “Iranaeus, proto-catholic tradition and the idea of heresy.” My lecturer advocated the theory proposed by the liberal scholarship of Koester and Walter Bauer, which proposes that what eventually came to be known as “orthodox” tradition, was in its earliest stages (i.e. up until the early second century) simply one of many “competing forms” of Christianity - no stronger or universal than any of the “other competing forms” of Christianity - and which eventually “won out” because of historical and political reasons. The question thus becomes: could, what we now identify as Orthodoxy, in its earliest stages (i.e. up until the early second century) have claimed a more superior criteria than the competing heresies, with respect to its legitimacy? My lecturer is so one-sided in his theories and his references to sources, so I would appreciate any arguments, comments, links, articles, and book references that will allow me to be thoroughly acquainted with the contra-Bauer-Koester perspective.