Posted on 07/02/2006 1:14:28 AM PDT by Dawnsblood
Would you all please feel free to add to the discussion?
Dean says:
Understanding the Bible Dean In the first few centuries of Christianity, no one had any idea that there was anything called a "Bible." Indeed, at that time, there was no Bible. That didn't happen until the 3rd or 4th century, depending on how you look at it.
Most early Christians were probably illiterate. Indeed, it is very likely that many of the original Apostles were illiterate. There is even evidence in the New Testament that Peter, Paul, and the other apostles were illiterate. Peter and Paul and the other New Testament writers often seem to be dictating to someone rather than writing for themsleves. All you have to do is read the beginnings of most of the New Testament books to see that.
Yet they all had a host of ideas and assumptions that they obviously drew from.
Until Martin Luther in the 1500s said that the Bible was the wellspring of Christianity, no Christian ever believed such a thing about the Bible.
So where do modern American Evangelicals get this idea, do you think?
An early Christian authority is included in this survey if he or it gives important evidence on the development of the canon of the New Testament (perhaps even having some influence on it) and did so before ~400 CE, when the first complete manuscripts of the Vulgate were issued. The early 'authorities' fall into these categories:
| Authority | Date CE | Form of evidence provided on the development of the canon of the New Testament |
|---|---|---|
| Ignatius of Antioch | ~110 | 7 letters with quotations and allusions to Christian writings as scripture. There are no citations by name. |
| Polycarp of Smyrna | ~110 | 1 letter with ~100 quotations and allusions to Christian writings as scripture. There are no citations by name. |
| Marcion | ~140 | founded a sect with its own "New Testament" collection. There was one Gospel, based mostly on the Gospel according to Luke |
| Valentinus | 140-150 | Valentinus and his followers - Heracleon, Ptolemy, Marcus - were Gnostic heretics so their doctrines mostly survive in the writings of the orthodox, such as Irenaeus, who summarized the Valentinian views before attacking them. The Gospel of Truth from Nag Hammadi probably derives from the Valentinians, but this is not certain. |
| Justin Martyr | 150-160 | many of his writings survive; he was the most prolific Christian writer up to his time. |
| Irenaeus | ~180 | two of his writings survive in translations (Latin and Armenian). There are quotations and allusions to Christian writings as scripture, and citations by name. |
| Clement | 180-200 | many of his writings survive; in them are about 8000 citations - over 1/3 of them from pagan sources. There are citations by name. |
| Tertullian | 200-210 | Tertullian was the most prolific writer of the Latin Fathers in pre-Nicene times (before 325 CE). There are citations by name. |
| Muratorian Canon | 200-300 | a manuscript discovered in the Ambrosian Library in Milan with a catalogue (in Latin) of the New Testament writings with comments |
| Origen | 220-350 | only a small part of his works survives, but this fills volumes There are citations by name. |
| Eusebius | 300-330 | much of the works of Eusebius survives, but here we only use his famous classification in [Eusebius] |
| codex Sinaiticus | ~350 | a manuscript discovered in 1859 containing a 4th-century New Testament |
| Athanasius | ~367 | his 39th Festal Epistle of 367 CE has a list of canonical books |
| Didymus the Blind | 350-398 | some of his exegetical writings have survived, including six commentaries discovered in 1941 |
| Peshitta | ~400 | a series of manuscripts of the Bible in Syriac including 22 New Testament books |
| Vulgate | ~400 | a series of manuscripts (over 10,000) of the Bible in Latin, whose New Testament coincides (more or less) with the present one |
Why should we be required to reply in Christian kindness to a man that is as much a liar and non-scholar as Dan Brown? This guy obviously has no clue whatsover regarding the REAL FACTS regarding the bible and seems to be content to wallow in his misinformation.
There is plenty of fact to refute every single statement he makes but it isn't worth my effort to reply to it because you can be certain a guy like this is not at all interested in the truth. Just in maintaining his anti-God, anti-Christian worldview. The bible says not to waste your time arguing with fools.
To me, as a student of the bible for over 30 years, I grow every year in my opinion of it--it is truly a miracle and the KING of all literature (ancient or modern) from a historical, archaeological, prophetical, spiritual, philosophical basis and as a historic text.
Yet, Jesus admitted that the way is narrow and few will walk it. Your favorite blogger will soon see (sadly) how wrong he is to commit the one unforgiveable sin of calling God a liar.
I will. Mr. Dean and virtually all of his respondents are biblically challenged.
Anything added to faith in Christ voids that faith for righteousness.
Accordingly, your position is sound. If one is building upon Scripture as though one is rationalistic rather than faithful, a good argument might be posed that one is committing the same error as those who build their faith upon liturgy or tradition, i.e. thinking that if one performs an act of crossing themselves, they have been faithful merely based upon the act, or if one studies and practices the books of tradition (I would like to say the Talmud independently of the Torah, although my knowledge here is limited), one might also assert that the object of faith is no longer God Himself, but rather a counterfeit, albeit a religious substitute.
Conversely, when we are built up by building precept upon precept, our faith and continuing faith or doctrine, is built by the Holy Spirit working within us.
The Word of God, is merely His communication revealed to man and recorded in written format. Our thinking that revelation from Him is consistent with His righteousness, thereby maintaining a situation where He may continue by grace to further develop our faith. It is only by His grace that we grow through Him at all.
In this fashion, we may build upon precept, upon precept, based upon His Word, but our faith only grows by the work of the Holy SPirit indwelling us. This is why it is so very important to remain and/or return into fellowship with Him by confession of sin and repentence, each and every time we study His Word. In this fashion, He is free in His Perfect Holiness to bestow His grace upon us by growing us in our understanding, thinking and walking, both in our thinking or soul and our spirit, leading to a cleansing of our heart.
Failure to return to Him by His protocol, and then reading the Bible, merely places us further is debt to Him as we actually begin to scar our thinking into a rationalistic legalistic perspective independent of faith. This might be classified as doin what is right in our own eyes rather than walking through faith in Him.
Such study leads to situations where many believers become frustrated with other believers, because rather than growing in the spirit through faith in Christ, they have degenerated by legalism into studying Scripture separate from faith in Him, but training their rationalistic thinking to be their counterfeit crutch, rather than living by His living Spirit.
A few points which tend to downplay the srgument posed is that Scripture still existed prior to the Gospel. The Torah was well written and recieved within the Jewish community and early Church.
The Holy Spirit provided many gifts to the early Church, and the gift of Pastor-teacher was among them. Divine revelation was also available and simply because an anthology we name 'the Bible' wasn't immediately available, doesn't imply God didn;t have a purpose and plan for every believer's life predetermined and planned in eternity past. It also didn't preclude Him from revealing His will by His grace to believers at that time.
A great perspective is to consider how much more blessed we are today to have such a wealth of divine revelation made so easily available to us to study through faith in Him.
The Bible is not one book by one author but a collection of "books" of varying lengths written over centuries.
The Bible itself makes no claims but those who wrote the Bible do make claims. Many of these claims start, "Thus says the Lord..." Another claim begins, "I am the way, the truth, and the light..."
The former is a claim that the God of creation has communicated directly to the speaker. The latter is a claim of divinity itself.
Why should we be required to reply in Christian kindness to a man that is as much a liar and non-scholar as Dan Brown?
Because Jesus says so.....
Love for Enemies
27"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. 34And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. 35But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
The current attack from all sides against the veracity of the bible serves only to further convince me that the end of the day of grace is near at hand, and the time of the Great Tribulation is not too far off. No truly born again Christian, that would be anyone whose salvation is based solely on faith and trust in the blood atonement made by Jesus Christ for his or her sin, will be deceived by these agents of the enemy no matter how cleverly old smutty face camouflages his deceptive schemes in scholarly garb. God said that his word is forever settled in Heaven, and according to Jesus Christ's own words no amount of Satanic deception will change or destroy one jot or tittle of it.
This is bunk. Didn't he ever hear of the Law and the Prophets? The New Testament is just the fulfillment and completion of the Covenant. The entire thing prophetically depicted Jesus Christ anyway. Early Christians (most of whom were Jewish) operated in the full revelation of Mosaic and prophetic scriptures.
Yes, all you Jewish FRiends heard me. We Christians are simply living in the fullness of what's been promised through the Messiah. :) Our faith in Jesus Christ is just the next logical step of that which your beautiful culture has preserved through the millenia.
Are you aware of a good text that encompasses this history?
You are exactly right!
They knew the Law and the Prophets and considered, even in Paul and Peter's day, the writings of Paul to be as authoritative as any other Jewish scripture. The entire New Testament can be assembled from quotations in the writings of the ante-Nicene Fathers and were considered as authoritative scripture from the earliest days.
And people used to assume that the story about Moses couldn't have been true because no one could write back then. Ooops, then they found slaves' graffitti and realized their assumptions were wrong. People with alphabetic writing could read and write quite easily. And someone who is very busy has a secretary to whom he dictates letters? That is evidence of illiteracy? No, it's just evidence of sloppy thinking.Yet they all had a host of ideas and assumptions that they obviously drew from.
Examine your own, Dean. You'll then have a chance of becoming enlightened.Until Martin Luther in the 1500s said that the Bible was the wellspring of Christianity, no Christian ever believed such a thing about the Bible.
This is simply untrue.So where do modern American Evangelicals get this idea, do you think?
1. As Peter wrote in a rustic Greek as befits a literate fisherman:"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."--II Peter 3:15-172. As the extremly well-educated Paul said:
a. "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."--Romans 15:4
b. "By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain." [Gee, this sounds sort of well-springy to me]
"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures...."--1 Cor 1:2-4
c. "But as for you [Timothy], continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...."--II Timothy 3:14-16
d. And last, but not least, from Jesus as quoted by someone who knew him well, as he confronted the ones who would later subcontract with Rome to kill him:
"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."
"Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"--John 5:39-40, 45-47 [This sounds pretty much well-springy, too]
Uh, from the same place that Luther and everyone else in Christianity back to the beginning got them, from the Bible.
d. should be 3.
Thanks for assembling that so clearly.
The author of the website I copied from suggestions:
http://www.ntcanon.org/information.shtml
If the questions are on the Davinci Code, I found Josh McDowell's Quest for answers the Davinci Code to be an easy and entertaining read.
not sure what Project MUSE is....
Continuing...to the abstract........
***************************************************
Kelber, Werner H. "Oral Tradition in Bible and New Testament Studies"
Oral Tradition - Volume 18, Number 1, March 2003, pp. 40-42
Slavica Publishers
Excerpt
Modern biblical scholarship is largely a child of the high tech of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. It developed its basic assumptions about and approaches to biblical texts in working with the print Bible, the first major, mechanically constructed book in early modernity. For this reason, the historical, critical scholarship of the Bible has risked laboring under a cultural anachronism, projecting modernity's communications culture upon the ancient media world.
However, despite its resolutely text-centered habits, historical criticism has by no means been unaware of orality's role in the formation of biblical texts. The impact of form criticism, the method devised to deal with oral tradition, on biblical scholarship of both the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament has been immense. Today, form criticism is besieged with multiple problems, the most significant of which is its complicity with post-Gutenberg assumptions about ancient dynamics of communication.
Not only are biblical texts by and large located in close affinity to speech, but the form critical project has turned out to be largely...
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