Did God not decide to drown the whole human lot because of "contamination?" Did Adam and Eve not get banished from the Garden because they contaminated God's Creation that he made good? Did God not declare a New Covenant because the Old one was not "without fault?" Whose fault was it? Not God's. Did the Hebrews not go back and forth to their pagan gods after their Exodus? Did they not reject Christ? Did not +Paul sent epistles to "contaminated" Christians as early as 60 AD (27 years after Christ died)? Did not +Ireneaeus have to fight a Herculean battle with heresies as early as the second century AD? Did not the Church sweat 300years to remove false "sctriptures" from circulation? Did not the Church call eight Ecumenical Councils in a matter of 500 years to deal with "contaminations" (heresies)? Do we not have different Bibles?
Where is there evidence that there is anything humans do that is eternal, unchaining and not subject to decay? Do we not go to repeated confessions and confess the same errors over and over even though we may sincerely repent of them? How can dirty hands not soil clean linen? Do we not believe that only the Ever-Virgin Mary was without sin?
How can we assume that omissions, additions, deletions, discrepancies and other biblical inconsistencies as being of no consequence? Can we really say we believe with anything but imperfect knowledge? Surely, Christ did not deliver imperfect faith. We made it imperfect.
Condemning the Church for losing the "originals" means that you think that the writers of Scripture knew at the time that they were writing Holy Scripture. I doubt very much that any of them had any idea of the kind
I am sure we could say that in their humility they accepted their task but did not boast about it. +John knew what he was writing. He even says that Christ commanded him to do so. +Paul knew what happened to him and what mission he was chosen to do for God. Did Moses know what he was writing? I would say yes, he knew. Surely, the Gospels were written to convey a message of the New Covenant. They were not written as a historical account, as Josephus would have written about it.
The Gospels were not controversial because they were narratives. +Paul's Epistles were already interpretations. As theology based on the New Covenant developed, so did heresies, differences, disagreements, additions, deletions, choosing MT over LXX, diverging Christology, rejection of CHalcedon, etc. All the way to the present day, Agrarian.
Last Sunday, my OCA Church proudly served bagels with cheese and egg sandwiches. When I, after first thanking them for their effort, politely reminded the kitchen volunteers that cheese and eggs are animal products and that we are half-way through Great Lent (the priest calls in only Lent, however), I was told "we are not monks." Yes, Agrarian, our faith is heavily contaminated and it is a real wonder that it even survived this long.
"Did God not decide to drown the whole human lot because of "contamination?""
I thought you believed that this was just a fable.
"Did Adam and Eve not get banished from the Garden because they contaminated God's Creation that he made good?"
I thought you believed that this was just a myth.
"Did the Hebrews not go back and forth to their pagan gods after their Exodus?"
I thought that these histories were all just made-up stories and riddled with falsehoods, contradictions, and errors, and that Moses and the Exodus didn't actually happen, according to the modern scholars you put your faith in.
"Did not +Paul sent epistles to "contaminated" Christians as early as 60 AD (27 years after Christ died)?"
Aren't you aware that modern scholarship dates the epistles attributed to Paul as being much later than that, and as having been extensively doctored by the church in subsequent centuries, if not actually concocted out of thin air?
"Did not +Ireneaeus have to fight a Herculean battle with heresies as early as the second century AD?"
St. Irenaeus was naive enough to believe in the historical accuracy of the Bible. Why should you even refer to him?
"Did not the Church sweat 300years to remove false "sctriptures" from circulation?"
What would be the big deal about that, since they are all contaminated and full of human errors and alterations. And what made them false? The Scriptures we do have falsely represent themselves as telling narratives of things that happened, even though you have assured us that probably none of it really happened -- they are just stories of "spiritual truth." Which ones are really the false Scriptures, and why would you care?
"Did not the Church call eight Ecumenical Councils in a matter of 500 years to deal with "contaminations" (heresies)?"
Why would you pay any attention to the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils? They were held and argued by men who actually believed the Scriptures to be true. And why should the decrees of the Councils be reliable and believable if the Scriptures they appealed to are not?
"Do we not believe that only the Ever-Virgin Mary was without sin?"
How on earth could you possibly know such a thing? Is it not more likely that the Church's stories about her are just meant to convey spiritual truth? How do we even know that she even existed? Probably she was just a spiritual story meant to inspire us in some way.
"+John knew what he was writing. He even says that Christ commanded him to do so."
So Christ commanded St. John to write his Gospel? How could that be, since St. John writes about "the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph." We all know that based on modern Biblical scholarship that neither Jacob nor Joseph really existed, and yet St. John doesn't say "according to myth and legend" -- he just states it as a fact. Christ told St. John to lie?
"Did Moses know what he was writing? I would say yes, he knew."
Really? Surely you are aware (as I learned from you) that Moses didn't really exist. You certainly, with your extensive knowledge of Biblical scholarship must know that modern scholars are in full agreement that the books attributed to Moses were not written by him, and that such a man probably never existed. Surely you accept the JEPD theory, if you accept all of the other things modern scholars say about the Old Testament.
"...choosing MT over LXX..."
Why wouldn't you choose the MT? Modern scholarship is united that the LXX is hopelessly corrupt compared to the MT. I'm surprised that you even give the LXX the time of day.
"The Gospels were not controversial because they were narratives."
What do you mean, they weren't controversial? Of course they were. You yourself continually point out that the only way we can believe them is to accept them only as spiritual truth, since we can't rely on the truth of the facts -- even the fact of Christ's bodily resurrection, which may very well be a myth that only is a story about a spiritual truth.
"Last Sunday, my OCA Church proudly served bagels with cheese and egg sandwiches. When I, after first thanking them for their effort, politely reminded the kitchen volunteers that cheese and eggs are animal products and that we are half-way through Great Lent (the priest calls in only Lent, however), I was told "we are not monks." Yes, Agrarian, our faith is heavily contaminated and it is a real wonder that it even survived this long."
So let me get this straight. You will call into question the truth and reliability of the narratives recounted in the Scriptures, and you mock those who treat them as such, calling them ignorant. And yet, you would criticize and judge people (to their face) who eat eggs and cheese during Great Lent -- even when you have made a point about saying that Orthodox fasting guidelines are entirely the creation of men?