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To: Kolokotronis
[On the wealth of Mary and Joseph:] Seriously, who knows? The important thing is He wasn't born in a palace contrary to then popular expectation.

I can't know with absolute certainty, and this really isn't a hot-button issue for me. But, it is an example of infallible tradition "appearing" to conflict with infallible scripture, although it is not airtight. (I was assuming that this document by James is considered infallible teaching.)

2,917 posted on 02/22/2006 4:54:46 PM PST by Forest Keeper
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To: Forest Keeper

If you are referring to the Protoevangelion of James that contains some of the stories of the early life of the Theotokos, etc, these are most emphatically *not* infallible writings.

These writings, I am pretty sure, came out of heretical sects.

It is not so much that the Orthodox get these traditions from these documents as it is that this is the oldest *written* documentation of this *oral* tradition.

A common tactic by heretical writers was to do two things: first, to put an apostle's name on their writings; and secondly, to set down in writing stories from oral Christian tradition that everyone agreed were true.

They then slipped in their false teachings around these true stories. I think that the Protoevangelion is Gnostic of some sort. There are certainly parts of it that are pretty wacky, as I recall. We Orthodox take as our authority our own Synaxarion writings and the texts of our liturgical services, which reflect the Orthodox oral tradition of these matters.

The fact that heretics made use of the story is no more evidence that it isn't true than is the fact that Mormons came up with their own stories of Christ means that the Biblical stories about Christ that they also teach aren't true.

In the writings of heretics of the early centuries, the most reliable things are generally the substrate of the actual story, life of a saint, or tradition they are telling. They would stick closely to the facts that Christians believed, so they could trick them into accepting their false teachings.


2,920 posted on 02/22/2006 5:16:01 PM PST by Agrarian
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To: Forest Keeper

"(I was assuming that this document by James is considered infallible teaching.)"

I guess I never looked at it that way. Its part of Holy Tradition and tells us something about what people in the very, very early Church believed. I don't think the issue of infallibility really applies here, but maybe it does.


2,921 posted on 02/22/2006 5:27:16 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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