Posted on 10/21/2002 9:04:51 AM PDT by jern
BREAKING: Archaeologists Report 1st Direct Evidence of Jesus
You cannot separate Church Fathers from the New Testament. It is them who gave us New Testament!
finnigan2: The artifact was packed and shipped to a museum in Toronto for display and, upon arrival, it was found to be cracked. At that point further tests were done and thew whole thing was found to be a fraud.
Old_Mil: The date on the article about the ossuary is 2002, supposedly it has been since revealed to be a fake.
Truth Addict: "The patina covering several of the inscription letters is no less authentic than the patina covering the other parts of the ossuary, which, according to the IAA team, is authentic."There was an immediate rush to judgment regarding the ossuary, not in favor of authenticity, but rather in favor of its having been faked. There never was any evidence for fakery, there was no credible testimony regarding the source of the item, and the entire inscription was found to be ancient (regardless of whether it may have been the ossuary of the James, brother of the Jesus), not once but twice. [Update—Finds or Fakes?]
Politicalmom: I never checked the date. Why do people do this?Sometimes when I run across something for the GGG topic, I'll indicate that it's a Blast from the Past, and put the year, to warn folks (if I'm pinging) that the topic is an old one. That isn't foolproof, because not everyone carefully reads before posting. One dead giveaway is when a topic has hundreds of posts.
ErnBatavia: A weirdness about Free Republic is that it's usually (altho not in this case) a brand new registrant that bumps some four year old thread...how they even find 'em mystifies me, and why they do it mystifies me even more...As you noted, I'm not a newbie. Why people waste time posting in one of these old threads after they figure out it's an old thread is likewise mystifying. ;')
Caesar Soze: Even weirder is that people reply to the first several posts on the thread ... not caring that a) the thread is already several hundred posts long, and b) it ended years ago. But I do so enjoy watching people try to start arguments in this manner.You're my thread favorite. :')
ASA Vet: Is this an opening for Jewish Wives jokes?;')
RightWhale: See what you did? Must be a boatload that didn't get the story as it developed.And since the topic is so darned old, the boat must have been the Ark. ;')
Somebody at CNN found a Bible. That's hopeful, I guess.
No -- Although the post to which you replied is nearly four years old, I'm pretty sure I was thinking of the Holy Trinity, in which Jesus is as much "God" as are the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Okay - define "church fathers." Because if you include Matthew, Mark, Luke, John et al as "church fathers" - which I do not believe is the normal use of the term - then okay. But the "church fathers" I am familiar with did not write the Old or New Testaments. So although they had their place in God's plan, they certainly do not match the stature of the writers of the OT and NT.
venerated vs worshipped?
Wellllllllllllllll, when I return to the principle of
judging people's words by people's actions . . .
guess I'd still have to go with 'worshipped.'
Behavior tends to be a lot more honest than vocabulary.
There have been lots of resurrections in our era in answer to prayer--in China, Africa and even in Mexico.
The religious PhD's of Jesus' dusty pathed days were great at word games, as well.
They just don't impress me.
We can play 'quote the scholars games,' too.
Those usually don't impress me much better.
Church Fathers were the disciples of the Apostles and the dispciples of disciples etc ... They were the teachers and confessors and leaders of the Church. They assembled and selected the books of the New Testament. They defined the dogmas of the Faith like Holy Trinity, Divinity of Christ, the unity of two Natures of Christ, the Divinity of Holy Spirit etc ... The Holy Spirit guided them same way as He guided the Prophets of the Old Testament.
Luther and Calvin attempted to restore the original Church from the Scriptures and they removed books which did not fit their doctrines.
We believe Mary was just a vessel chosen to carry the blessed child. A womb, but that's all. After his birth, she proceeded with her normal wifely duties. She was born into sin like any other woman. Why shouldn't she service her husband like other wives?
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There you go again. Trying to be logical, reasonable, historically accurate etc. when you know all such has zilch influence on . . .
those determined to believe otherwise.
But, great effort. Someone needs to stick up for the truth!
Whare'd that idea come from?
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I think the Bible gives a clue when it talks about doctrines of men and doctrines of demons.
If Mary is not who we think her to be, then Jesus was a mere man.
He's Catholic too , no? To say Jesus had actual brothers and sisters would destroy the eternal virgin stuff, and discredit the teachings of his church.
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IIRC, the Pope of the critical era needed more income for some conquests or some such . . . and he or someone came up with the whole Marian thing as another way to boost income through a diversity of . . . add-ons related to Mary. Clever. Not very Biblical. But clever. Worked. Still works.
I wonder how much cash the Vatican has made off of Marian curios over the last 1500 years--or whatever it is.
It's interesting to me . . . The Father said--THIS IS MY !SON! IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED. Left out Mary.
The Mount of Transfiguration . . . left out Mary.
Were those God's bad hair days? Did He forget to take His memory pills? How could HE have left out Mary? Come to think of it--He left her out of the whole rest of the New Testament. Guess God Almighty knew something the Popes didn't.
James, who led the early church in Jerusalem.
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Great insight.
But, there you go again--being Scriptural, historically accurate; logical; true to the Text; . . . .
You should know RELIGION has no place for such reasonable things! /sar
You cannot separate Church Fathers from the New Testament. It is them who gave us New Testament!
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Oh, really?
Watch me.
Though I really don't plan to bother.
Your statement would imply that a varying list of early church fathers all wrote inspired Scripturating text.
They didn't.
They gathered and choose the books of New Testament over span of several years. They organized and guided the early Church, they defined the dogmas of Faith (like Divinity of Christ, the unity of three Persons of Holy Trinity, unity of two natures of Christ in one person etc ...
When the last books of the New Testament were written the New Testament did not exist yet as one collection. The basic dogmas of Faith were formed generations later. This process took generations and was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
That was really little different than what I Corinthians 14 exhorts every local body to do in terms of vetting evidently Holy Spirit fostered pronouncements in the local group.
BTW, I don't really consider the church of that era the Roman one.
IIRC, Rome's usurping Bishop didn't weild enough political power to make that stick for some time to come.
It was not just the bishop of Rome, the decisions for the Church were made by the gatherings of bishops local or universal like the First Ecumenical Council in Nicea (A.D. 325)
In this Council the heresy of Arianism was condemned and the true Orthodox Catholic doctrine about Divinity of Christ with His eternity and co-substantiality with the Father was asserted.
The authority of bishops is derived from the Apostles as the latter appointed their successors having the power to do so given directly by Christ.
From the beginning the Apostles and bishops met in councils when the decisions applying to the whole Church were needed. Their meetings were orderly and there was hierarchy of primacy among them. That is where the position ancient patriarchates and see of Rome is derived from.
This constitution of the Church lasted until Great Schism of XI-th century when the Western Latin Church and Eastern Greek Church separated. From that time in the Western Church the primacy of bishop of Rome became more prominent and explicit, in the East the more collective decentralized order prevailed.
With the invention of printing press it became possible to provide the books of Holy Scripture to the mass audience. So Luther and Calvin were able to undertake the reform of the Western Church by basing the reformed Christianity on the individual reading and interpretation of the Bible.
With the development of Congregationalism the principle of democracy and the autonomy of the congregation was established. This is not what was present in the ancient times.
Thankfully, that is not the only historical view and interpretation.
Those are not views or opinions. Those are facts easy to verify. If an impartial person, let say someone who is not a Christian, looks at the Christian documents of the first centuries will be able to see it for himself.
But if you claim otherwise please provide your view or opinion. I will be very interested.
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