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To: kosta50
"The authorship of those books, which are nonetheless considered inspired, is not certain, HD. Hate to burst your bubble."

Then couldn't they be Gnostic writings the Church has erroneously declared "inspired"? The Church has made mistakes in the past. Why not now? In the end you undermine your own faith.

Our Lord Jesus had much to say to those who put tradition before God's written word:

There must have been the written word somewhere or all of these statements would be a little crazy. And, btw, our Lord Jesus was pretty hard on those who focused on tradition.
2,122 posted on 01/30/2006 6:00:48 AM PST by HarleyD (Man's steps are ordained by the LORD, How then can man understand his way? - Pro 20:24)
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To: HarleyD; annalex; jo kus; Kolokotronis; Cronos
Then couldn't they be Gnostic writings the Church has erroneously declared "inspired"?

One of the reasons it took the Church 300+ years to put together Christian canon is precisely the fear that the books which seemed inspired may have been written by heretics. I mentioned earlier that over 200 such texts existed, all masquerading as "inspired" books. Of tese, 27 ended up in the Christian canon.

The Church fathers painstakingly researched, read and compared texts, debated their implications and message, and compared them to the teachings of Christ from texts known to be authored by the Apostles.

Anything that was written by an Apostle was considered inspired. However, the autorship of some of these was in dispute and still is. Many of the late Pauline, Petrine and other epistles were accepted on content and seamlessness of their message withr espect to the Church Tradition tat was kept alive in writing and by word of mouth from the beginning.

Thus, in your rant about traditions of men, you miss to note 2 Thess 2:15 "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."

and 2 Thess 3:6 "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us."

Apples and oranges...

The Church has made mistakes in the past

The Churhc may has engaged in some erroneous practices and beliefs and has steadfastly corrected them. The original Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic, taught one and the same faith for 1,000 years and was defined by oral Tradition, the Scriptures and the Ecumenical Cuncils, all in perfect harmony. The Church of the seven councils never made an error in teaching or in weeding out what was not faith once delivered, unchanged. I can't vouch for the Latin side, but the Orthodox Church, which is the same Church of the seven councils, teaches exactly the same thing the Church taught from the beginning. The Latin side teaches some things we do not teach, but this seems to be more an issue of terminology and phronema (mindset) rather than error. I can guarantee you that if the Church, at a next ecumenical council, finds error in teaching in its ranks, the Church will reject that error, and call those who erroneously taught that which the Church did not believe from the beginning, to repent or be excommunicated.

2,166 posted on 01/30/2006 5:20:58 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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