Gamera

As opposed to . . .?

The historical documentation of Christianity is quite good. Certainly superior to any other religious movement.

You just don't seem to like Christianity, which is a separate topic.

Gamera

The early church was well aware of forgeries, and excluded them outright. Such exclusions are mentioned several times.

The early church also must have used some form of "literary" analysis (which they associated with "inspiration"), since virtually every mss that is included in the canon is palpably superior as literary works to the forgeries and epigraphia they excluded

They claimed they prayed about it, but I expect as educated, literary men, they engaged in what we would call "literary criticism" without the label, and identified the better written, more philosophically developed works being passed around by beleivers. Those mss are the ones that make up the canon today. As a Christian, I consider this consistent with the formation of an inspired canon, but that's neither here nor there.

The Evil One

Bollocks, the history of both Scientology and Mormonism are better documented than Christianity, and that's just off the top of my head.

spin

The early church as delineated by Lucian of Samosata certainly doesn't match your perception of the early church.

I wonder what you mean by early church now. The evidence we have of the early church is of a group of people from the lowest strata of society and hence uneducated (this is the emperor Julian's critique of the early church). The people depended on texts of dubious quality regarding the quality of language, ie written in the common koine Greek of the period, though evincing signs of the writers' difficulties with that language. It's not until the appearance of a Justin or an Irenaeus that lettered writers became involved in the religion. So, "early church"?

That is a glowing misrepresentation, though yes, much of the shlock that was written but excluded was more knife and fork written, other works such as that by Valentinus are obviously superior.

There it is, "educated, literary men"! This is clearly not the early church.

The other leg plays jingle bells. Gamera, you are dealing with a crowd of mostly illiterates in the early church.

Now you're just preaching.

Nor representative of the way it was.


spin

spin

I don't think the comment was about how well early christianity was documented. It is the documentation which helps to show that "early Christianity was a mess".

I would probably agree with you about your interlocutor.


spin

Gamera

Let's stipulate we're talking about the rise of the major world religions, during ancient times, such as the various pre-Christian European pagan religions, Bhuddism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam.

Gamera

[QUOTE=spin;4036244].


Julian is hardly an unbiased observor but a man with an axe to grind

Paul was the driving force behind the earliest church history. He was clearly an educated man, perhaps one of the most educated men of his time.

But in any case, I'm refering to the period of the church to the rise of the various canons, which were assembled by educated, literate men. There was no canon by definition among Christians before the rise of the canon. Only literate persons would even care about a canon, and that is what we are talking about.

mountainman

The logic of inference might be the poorer cousin to that of deduction,
yet as you allow, it is arguably consistent with the evidence. In the
absence of any evidence to the contrary, the logical inference is that
Eusebius continued in his capacity as "Head Ecclesiastical Researcher"
(or whatever term you may wish to use), and thus - by default - was
the author of the canon physically bound by order of Constantne.

Johnny Skeptic

And I suppose you aren't biased.

I agree, but what does that have to do with the New Testament Canon?

Because of God, there was no unified Christian theology during early Christianity, and there isn't today. Christians have fought many wars among themselves, and they conquered the largest colonial empire in history by far under a single religion. Why has all of this happened? It has happened because God has refused to show up tangibly, in person, and tell Christians how they should act. It is embarrassing for Christians that the Bible does not clearly oppose slavery.

Gamera

[QUOTE=Johnny Skeptic;4036616]Since last time I checked, I don't live in the first century CE, this couldn't be more irrelevant. Man, your hostility is a window to the lack of merit of your arguments. Focus, focus, focus.

We'll spin claimed the early church was ignorant and illiterate. Paul rebuts the claim. Again, focus.

Since as a Christian I don't care about theology, I don't see what your criticism goes to. As to slavery, Jesus admonition to love one's neighbor opposes slavery about as fundamentally as you can get.