The Neverending Story (The New Christian Chronicles)

Southern Baptists ending talks with Catholic Church ^ | 3/24/01 | AP

[malakhi]

The Neverending Story
An ongoing debate on Scripture, Tradition, History and Interpretation.

Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams

Thread 162
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[malakhi]

Do you know it is possible to say the Hail Mary in less than 5 seconds if you "speed talk"?

WOW, your right, I just tried it:)

Becky

Mack, Becky's saying "Hail Mary's". ;o)

[DouglasKC]

Who is speaking here? Nebuchadnezzar. A pagan king who believed in many gods. He is describing what he thinks he sees. Undoubtedly to him, the appearance of an angel would look "like a son of the gods".

He can't be talking about the fourth one as if it's a son of pagan gods. He knows that the three worship only one God and he has to recognize the fact that the angel was sent by the one God because what other God would help them? :

Dan 3:28 Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent His Angel and has delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and have changed the king's words and have given their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any god except their own God.

[malakhi]

When Charlemagne was crowned in 800 A.D., the acculturation of his kingdom was effected by importing all things Roman, including Gregorian chant, from which all western music developed (even Rock and Roll : ) I'm not certain whether he adopted Latin as the universal language, but I suspect he did. (I value your input on this one, Goetz.)

That would make sense, considering that the Franks were a Germanic tribe, and ended up speaking a Latin derivative. But of course, they would not have needed to import the Latin from Rome, since Gaul had been a Roman province for hundreds of years, and Latin would have been the "lingua franca" even after the collapse of Rome. So the Franks picked it up from the natives.

[DouglasKC]

and if one wants to read that "bar elahh" as Christ then he also saved those three...
I shake my head in wonderment. You are reading into the passage what you want to see. Verse 28 clearly states that it was an angel. Yet you insist on making it about Jesus.

I gotta do it! I looked at several commentaries and I'm not out of line (as a Christian) in thinking that was probably Jesus. I don't think it's odd that they would call him an angel. When Jesus was first seen by some apostles they thought he was ghost so it wouldn't be such a stretch.

Let me ask you another thing while were on the subject...do you see any similarities at all between Abrahams sacrifice of Isaac and the sacrifice of Christ?

[malakhi]

If a Christian is baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then God is The One whose Name is Three.

You can argue this all you want, but this is "new testament" teaching; it is not found in the Hebrew scriptures.

[The_Reader_David]

Ah, but the phrase the All-Holy Trinity is always used as a singular in Orthodox Christian usage--the appropriate pronouns are He and Thee. Thus our priests often say "For thou art a good God, who lovest mankind and to thee do we ascribe glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit..." And the assembled laity at the end of the Liturgy say (as I quoted before) "Worshipping the Undivided Trinity, who has saved us."

The difference seems to be that we understand this oddity of a plural which takes singular verbs as having a different theological import--we see it as indicating God's transcendence of the dichotomy between unity and multiplicity, you choose to see only the verb's number as significant.

[malakhi]

He can't be talking about the fourth one as if it's a son of pagan gods.

This was his first impression of what he saw. After the three were released from the fire, the king concluded that they had been saved by their God, who had send His angel to protect them.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

"[T]he acculturation of his kingdom was effected by importing all things Roman."

That is my understanding as well. Unfortunately, scholarship being what it was, a true revival of Roman culture was impossible. Basically, the impression I get is that it was just Franks playing "dress up." Please bear in mind, however, that I am far from being an authority on the period.

[The_Reader_David]

I, as would any rational reader, understand the name Constantine in the context of these discussions to mean the actual historical person who attained the throne of the Roman Empire after a period of civil strife, legalized Christianity in the Empire, moved its capital from Rome to Constantinople, and called the First Ecumenical Council. Since you seem to regard sober and detailed correction as to historical facts regarding his life and related matters of ecclesiatical history as "pompous lectures", perhaps you are using the name in some other way. If so, quite frankly, I think you deserve all the pompous lectures you get whether from me, other Orthodox, or the Latins on the thread.

[malakhi]

I looked at several commentaries and I'm not out of line (as a Christian) in thinking that was probably Jesus.

Umm, would these by any chance have been Christian commentaries? I thought so.

Let me ask you another thing while were on the subject...do you see any similarities at all between Abrahams sacrifice of Isaac and the sacrifice of Christ?

Superficially it would seem so, in that you have a father sacrificing a son. But Isaac was taken to the site of what became the Temple Mount; Jesus was executed on Golgotha. Isaac was to be a "burnt offering" (that's why he was carrying the wood); Jesus was crucified. Abraham was stopped by God's angel. The lesson was that God does not want human sacrifice. Whereas in Jesus's case God did not rescue him, and the lesson is supposed to be that only human sacrifice of the "God-man" Jesus could atone for our sins.

[Pelayo]

But of course, they would not have needed to import the Latin from Rome, since Gaul had been a Roman province for hundreds of years, and Latin would have been the "lingua franca" even after the collapse of Rome. So the Franks picked it up from the natives.

Gaul was a province, but when the Franks came in they didn't just except the "common speech" of their new peasants, any more then they at first excepted the Religion of the Romano-Gauls. Clovis, after excepting the Catholic faith, would have begun enforcing the new language among the upper class Franks, but after he died the Kingdom feel into a bad-spell. Later, Carlos Magnus commissioned schools(monasteries) for the purpose of revitalizing western Civilization, and they would have included Latin as an obligatory language of government as well as Religion. Latin became the universal written language of Europe; you could send a message anywhere to anyone, as long as it was in Latin.

[The_Reader_David]

I am quite well aware that some protestants try to find an imaginary "pre-Constantinian" version of Christianity which fits all their preconceived ideas about what the early Church they fancy the reformation (or the founding of their own sect) has restored. I take you to task precisely because as an Orthodox Christian I am quite well aware of what the early Church was like: It was litugical (the first Divine Liturgy, still used among the Orthodox at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai and once annually in Jerusalem was composed by St. James, the Brother of the Lord, first Bishop of Jerusalem--it is longer and more complex than subsequent Christain liturgies East or West). It collected the relics of martyrs for veneration (read the accounts of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, during the persecutions before Constantine's Edict of Toleration). It was governed by councils of bishops (see Acts 15, and, for example, the condemnation of Paul of Samosata by the Holy Synod of Antioch in 268 for teaching that Jesus became the Son of God by adoption at His baptism). It met in Christian temples whenever the persecutions allowed this (both archeological evidence and historical records). It used icons (on the evidence of wall paintings in Christian catacomb churches). It was organized into diocese parallel to Roman Imperial provinces (yes, before the Peace of Constantine). It had no fixed canon of Holy Scripture: the first list of Christian sacred writings containing exactly the books of the New Testament as received by the Church occurs in a letter of St. Athanasius dating from the 360's--after the Peace of Constantine (as futher evidence the Ethiopian Monophysites have a longer New Testament Canon, including the Shepherd of Hermas, and, I believe, the Epistle of St. Clement).

Unless you have perversely decided to equate the Latin church and the Orthodox (thereby imitating the current Pope of Rome's "two lungs" rhetoric) I see no sense at all in mentioning Constantine. Or are you, perhaps a neo-Arian who resents Constantine's patronage of Nicea?

[Elsie]

False, and offensive. Just because Jews do not accept Jesus as God does not mean that we "still stone him today". Frankly, outside of these sorts of discussions, which most Jews do not partake in (probably because others will accuse them of killing God),

But, as psychologists tell us that some people would rather be abused than ignored, it was in this vein that I meant the statement.

I could never quite figure this one out, unless the people saying it are so ignorant of their religion.

---

It plainly states many places in the NT that God's plan was in place 'before the world was created'. Jesus' death was not an accident. If He HAD not died, and resurrected, I would not have salvation now.

Why should anyone have animosity toward todays Jews because they wanted Christ out of the way 2000 years ago?

If Jesus was NOT God, then He was a massive con man or a looney. Them bozoes that followed Him sure were fooled into getting themselves killed, too.

[The_Reader_David]

Gee, it's nice to see someone else has taken up my old pass-time of "Frank-bashing". :-)===

You might enjoy the late Fr. John Romanides' website The Romans, Ancient, Medieval and Modern.

Memory eternal! Memory eternal! Memory eternal! (I only learned of Fr. John's passing when I check the link for you.)

[RobbyS]

I agree if by this you mean that one must believe that Jesus is the Christ to see it, or to turn this around, one cannot see if it if one does not believe that he is. There is no objective way to read Scripture.

[Elsie]

But beyond the notion of the infinite becoming finite, there are scriptural reasons we do not believe this.

But, did not GOD create the world?

Isn't that finite stuff coming from an infinite source?

---

(And, just who is the US that is mentioned? GOD the Father and ??)

[Elsie]

Jews do well to listen to the commandments of YHWH rather than to those who tell them to follow a different path.

Are there any commands that YHWH has told the Jews to do, that they are NOT doing now?

[RobbyS]

Given that the Emperor Constantine exercised the role of "outside bishop," in what amounted to a Greek synod, and that his successors in Constantinople played also played such a role, one might say that the Byzantine tradition began at this time.

[Elsie]

The lesson was that God does not want human sacrifice.

Then what DOES He want?

---

Genesis 22
1. Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied.
2. Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

Does GOD lie?

[malakhi]

It plainly states many places in the NT that God's plan was in place 'before the world was created'

Sorry, I hardly accept this as authoritative.

If He HAD not died, and resurrected, I would not have salvation now.

Assuming, of course, that I am wrong and you are right.

Why should anyone have animosity toward todays Jews because they wanted Christ Jesus out of the way 2000 years ago?

Now that's a great question. The reasons are varied, I'm sure, but the fact is, there are plenty of self-professed Christians (some who even post on FR until they are banned, and sneak back in under other names) who have animosity towards Jews. There is a strain of anti-semitism in the church going back to its earliest days. Not universal, but there. If you want links to modern hate sites, they are easy to find.

If Jesus was NOT God, then He was a massive con man or a looney. Them bozoes that followed Him sure were fooled into getting themselves killed, too.

Or he was mistaken. Or misunderstood, and his disciples were mistaken. Or Paul converted a Jewish sect which revered its dead leader into a new religion. Or all of the above.