I don't know. I have difficulty believing that when He said "it's finished (accomplished)" He meant that St. Paul was supposed to add to His teaching because somehow it wasn't finished, that somehow He left his mission incomplete!
Well, I suppose we have a great deal of disagreement over exactly WHAT was finished. Since I believe that the Bible is God's revelation to man, and none of the NT had been written yet when Christ died, I KNOW the "it" could not have referred to that. The "it" refers to Christ's complete, final, and total atonement for the sins of His elect. If true, then His death has meaning. If all Christ did with His life was make it possible for us to save ourselves by doing enough works, then I consider it a cheap death because not a single person enters Heaven JUST BECAUSE Christ died.
As for Revelation, was not Christ Himself the fullness of God's revelation? We needed Revelation on top of that? As if Christ didn't finish His mission?
I'm not sure what that means. The fullness of God's revelation could be expressed as Christ Himself, plus the Holy Spirit, plus the Scriptures, plus creation itself, and perhaps other things. (I think AG has said something very close to this before.) Anyway, the full revelation of God is certainly more than one group of men's interpretation of the Gospels alone.
Any cursory study of ancient manuscripts will tell you that ancient writers use quotes in a distinctly different manner then we do. Ancient usage of quotes is not verbatim transcription of someone's utterances, but what the author believed that someone intended to say. This flies in the face of usage of quotes just as our terminology (coming from OT) is given Christianized meaning which differs from that in Judaism.
That can't be. NT quotes of OT statements are VERBATIM. In the desert, Jesus quotes verbatim. It is satan who misquotes scripture, as he did when he lied to Eve about what God said. Under what you are saying your reverence for the Gospels would have to be thrown out if all it amounts to is the "best efforts" to remember specific conversations from decades earlier. Nobody could do that in such detail (on his own).
I guess we do. Finished means perfect, complete. That includes the delivery of the true faith. The faith is delivered once from the lips of the Lord Himself. He said nothing of someone else picking up after Him. The same thing with Revelation. If Christ is the fullest revelation of God, why is there a "sequel?".
If all Christ did with His life was make it possible for us to save ourselves by doing enough works, then I consider it a cheap death
That's not what the Orthodox/Catholics believe. Our works are a reflection of our faith. We do works because, as you said yourself, God left us work to do. Being restored to the likeness of God is not accomplished with a magic wand.
The fullness of God's revelation could be expressed as Christ Himself, plus the Holy Spirit, plus the Scriptures, plus creation itself, and perhaps other things...
The NT, more precisely, the Gospels, are the narratives of God's revelation to man in His human nature. Without that, Christianity is meaningless because it would worship an unknown, distant deity which our human minds cannot conceive. In Christ, we can relate to God through His human nature, as use His humanity as our standard of what humans ought to be like.
The rest of the scriptures are either hints leading to the Gospels, or after-the-fact human interpretation and imitation of His teachings and life as witnessed by the Gospels. The book of Revelation is not even that. It's more like a de novo prophesy as if Christ did not fulfill the law and the prophets. It suggests that Christ did not reveal all that was to be revealed. And it flies in the face of the Great Commission that the Apostles are to teach what has been revealed, and not to invent or add to His revelation by some heavenly Internet "downloads."
Anyway, the full revelation of God is certainly more than one group of men's interpretation of the Gospels alone.
Yes, but nothing can top the Gospels.
Kosta: Ancient usage of quotes is not verbatim transcription of someone's utterances, but what the author believed that someone intended to say. This flies in the face of usage of quotes just as our terminology (coming from OT) is given Christianized meaning which differs from that in Judaism.
FK: That can't be. NT quotes of OT statements are VERBATIM.
Excuse me?!? And what evidence do you have that they are? Let me guess: the OT, right? LOL!
If you'd bother to look up the issue, you'll find that ancients did not quote verbatim but when they do quote "verbatim" they expressed what the author believed the person would have said. That is just a historical and literary fact and style.
It is satan who misquotes scripture, as he did when he lied to Eve about what God said
No one is talking about "misquoting" here, counsellor. I am saying that alleged quotes (which the Greeks and Jews don't use) are not verbatim quotes. In many instances, they simply can't be. Such as what Jesus said on the Cross. Except for John, all other Apostles were far away, hiding, to hear anything being said there. And please don't tell me the HS "told them." The get-out-of-all-dead-end-corners-about-the-Bible card. LOL!
Under what you are saying your reverence for the Gospels would have to be thrown out if all it amounts to is the "best efforts" to remember specific conversations from decades earlier. Nobody could do that in such detail (on his own).
Well, they copied from Mark, who was never there, and who heard it from Peter, who was hiding. That much is known. And they used the same source (narrative, oral tradition otherwise known as the "Q"), plus they added a little of their own personal twist to their concordance. John,on the other hand, writes 60 years after Christ and his Gospel doesn't resemble anything close to the other three.
That's not throwing out reverence for the Gospel; it's simply not making the Gospels what they are not. They are narratives according to their human authors, motivated moved by ("inspired:) by their faith. That doesn't mean they are perfect and free of human errors.