{Ordinary Netizen Hat ON}

From my perspective, it seems that penatis and Nomad are getting far afield and communication is eroding. I suggest a short break and then a dramatic narrowing of discussion.

Nomad,

Maybe this is OT, I don't know.

You state repeatedly that the church has held the same belief set since the beginning. How do you know what the church believed before anyone bothered to write it down?

-Pompous Bastard

Okay, this is an excellent question, and there are a couple of methods that we use to establish this truth.

The first is the fact that we do have writings from actual first Century witnesses, and this is not disputed by anyone (except the wingnut Jesus Myther crowd, but let's save THAT discussion for another time and place please). The epistles of Peter, Paul, Jude, John, and very likely James contain much of the supporting evidence for Church doctrines and teachings.

The second is taken from what we know about the preservation of oral traditions in ancient and Middle Ages societies (pre-Guttenburg press basically), with various levels of confidence ranging from a low of 70% to a high of 95%+ in trasmission integrity (and yes, I know all the arguments about urban legends and telephone games and the like, but this is a modern prejudice that fails to recognize the unique circumstances and capabilities of a society that was forced to rely upon oral transmissions of its traditions and beliefs).

The third centres on the fact that all of the Gospel stories were written no later than 1 to 2 generations after the events took place, and again, working from what we know about ancient societies, and especially theological developements in ancient religions, transformations of important doctrines take longer than this).

Thus, we see no theological developement taking place within Paul's epistles (generally dated mid-40's to his death in early 60's), nor do we find conflicts with similar letters written by the other apostles against what Paul was teaching. Finally, the Gospels themselves line up with what Paul and the other apostles had already told us doctrinally in their letters. This consistency of purpose and beliefs is what helped the Church combat the various heresies that tried to "steal" some of its teachings for their own purposes (most notably the Gnostics), or to pervert it later (especially the Marcians and Arians).

Bottom line, IF anyone in the first Century would have been trying to actually change Church doctrines in the first Century, we would see actual evidence of such a thing (like conflicting first Century letters from some of the apostles, or significant redations of the text). Now you know why I keep asking for these kinds of illustrations. And as you can see, I am not interested in speculations here. I want to see ANYTHING from the THOUSANDS of manuscripts, scrolls, fragments and codices that would demonstrate such a clear and fundamental break with the traditions and teachings of the Church.

BTW, and excellent, and relatively short article that shows how the NT Scriptures rely upon oral traditions themselves can be found in an essay titled Oral Tradition in the New Testament by David Palm. Remember again that the Gospels and epistles were being written to and for living breathing communities of believers that already knew many of these oral traditions by heart. If they were to be taught something radical and new, they would and did spot it in a New York minute.

Nomad

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Nomad:
[WARNING -- Credentials paragraph, if you will accept that I am qualifed to make claims without reading this, then just skip it]I am embarassed, but I don't know if I need to mention my background in order to justify my opinion or not.... but just for the record, the statments I am about to make come from one who has studied and been trained in Biblical Interpretation including (I mentioned this on a separate thread)
two years of Greek, four years in classes such as Old Testament Interpretation, New Testament Interpretation, Biblical Literature, Pauline Epistles, and of particular importance to this discussion, History of Christian thought, from the first-century church fathers through Medieval times, and History of Chritian thought from Aquinas to modern times, as well as two years of Christian Theology, and advanced Christian Theology, in which I passed with honors, winning the Elwood A. Sanner award for most outstanding scholarly paper submitted by a student for the year. I have now gradutated and hold a degree in Philosphy, with special emphasis in Philosophy of Religion. [End of qualifications paragraph]

That said, you are just plain wrong. Well, perhaps not that cut-and-dry. But, there is plenty of evidence for the early church's (first century)doctrineal upheavals and struggles. You paint the picuture that the early church was this unified voice and everyone understood Jesus and what it meant to "follow" him the same way. This is not at all true. Evidence? The bible itself for one. Let me explain:

What are you smoking? Pauls letters are more often that not written to counter different doctrinal emphasis that are springing up in the churches. His letters are literally filled with his clarifications, qualifications and refutations of the practices and doctrines various churches were beginning to employ. He mentions some people by name that he doesn't agree with. And in acts you have him going separate ways from other Christians, because of disagreements. Christian doctrine did not come to be through some neat and tidy pretty little picutre where every one agreed. Not at all -- I have no problem if you want to say that the Holy Spirit ultimately led the chruch fathers and the apostles into "all truth" so that the Church in the end, developed exactly as it should. However, what you cannot say credibly is that even in the earilest church, it was free and unifed from differenig beliefs, differing doctrinal emphasis, differing understandings.

You attempt to make it sound as if there was a "package" of absolute beliefs in the first century is clearly false. The evidence for that falsity in addition to the letters of paul itself, is in the additional years to come wherein the church had councel after councel and the church fathers wrote volume after volume arguing with each other, and against others, in addition to agruing against what they considered to be "heresies." If there had been a great and universal agreement in doctrine in the first century, you wouldn't have had the later councles trying to establish what was "orthodox" and what was "heretical" in the midst of so many differeing understandings. If fact, that's nearly all Pauls letters are about -- trying to correct (according to pauls understanding) different docrtinal offshoots.

Are you sure we are talking about the same first century? You do mean from 0-99CE yes? of is that the "zero" century?

In response to the "...short break..." suggested by SingleDad, I think penatis and Nomad are two titans of logic and informations, who go way down to the detail level in the debate. I can think of printing the entire topic, because this is beyond what I thaught the ultimate in logic and informations of a religious debate can possibly be, and I am learning from it. Personally, I think penatis is more logical and informed in the debate. He is also very humble, meticulous in his method of debating.

penatis: No extant MSS containing Matthew 27:45-56/Mark 15:33-41 date earlier than the fourth century. To my knowledge, Codex Sinaiticus is the earliest.

Nomad: Then you need to do more research. The Paris Codex contains extant copies of all 4 Gospels plus the book of Acts and has been reliably dated to no later than early 3rd Century AD. Some papyrologists are beginning to think that it can be dated even earlier than that.

penatis: The “Paris Codex” is a Mayan document [See Encyclopedia Britannica]. Perhaps Nomad is alluding to the Codex Ephraemi, a FIFTH century codex located at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. This document contains most of what is included in the modern NT, but most scholars consider it “unimportant” because of its textual problems. See The Text of the New Testament, Bruce M. Metzger, pp.48-49.

No. You are confused.
The Paris Codex I am speaking is the one studied by Kurt Aland in 1966.

I have cited sources. Notice that Nomad does not mention where his information came from. (Kurt Aland probably studied a great number of things in 1966. So what.) Since he does not cite a source, how do we know his statement/information is accurate?

Perhaps I was unclear in explaining what I meant by the formulation of Church doctrine as we see in the first Century (yes, 1-100AD), so permit me to explain.

Church doctrine is formed when the apostles, or their apostolic successors teach us the Truth, and we use past Scripture (see the example of the Bareans in Acts) to confirm that what is being taught to us is true.

Thus, of course Paul's epistles are offered as instruction and correction. That is what the Church does for us, and saves us from error and heresy (the original word comes from the Greek word for "choice" BTW. Just a bit of trivia). Clearly anyone with a reasonable level of intelligence (or even exceptional intelligence) could use traditions, both oral and written to support almost anything you care to believe, but working from the assuption that there has to be an actual TRUE understanding, someone has to have the final say in such matters (kind of a theological court of last resort). That authority belongs to the Church itself, and we cannot hope to try and create a doctrine that is suited just for a small group (or even for a lone individual) and confidently proclaim ourselves right, and all others wrong.

This is why I get so picky when we talk about who can speak with authority and who cannot. I can understand a sound doctrine based on traditions and Scripture, but I certainly lack the gifts to teach it to others. That belongs to the chosen leaders of our Church. And if they stray from God's Word, well, like I would with any other person, I bear a responsibility as one of the members of Christ's Body to correct that individual.

Actually, yes it was, through the apostles themselves. Again, I have tried to be clear in differentiating their authority from that of the laity and false teachers. Jesus chose a specific group of men to spread His Gospel, and invested them with special authority and rights (and obligations) concerning the truth. The evidence you offer from the Bible is the demonstration of these men putting that authority into practice.

I never smoke.

Exactly.

Again, absolutely.

Clearly. For example, Paul himself had to correct Peter and John, and in Acts 15 we have our first genuine Church Council called to settle the question of how to treat the new Gentile converts. This is apostolic authority in action, and to this day it is how matters are settled (like for example, in the acceptance of Canonical Books vs non-Canonical, and the creation of the Ecumenical Creeds). If you would like to probe deeper into the Church methodology in these matters I would love to do so. I rarely find sceptics that are interested in such questions.

Yes.

I did not mean to sound like I had. I apologize for the confusion. As I said in my original post, IF someone was teaching something radical and new, we would need to see it coming from an apostle AGAINST another apostle to have a real problem on our hands. The fact that the "heresies" came from non-apostles is a crucial distinction, and allows us to see who is working against God's will.

Again, not when we look at the apostles.

You are confusing process with conclusive doctrines. Debate is always allowed until a conclusion is reached. Even Arius theoretically could have returned to the Church had he renounced his previously held beliefs. They were not heretical beliefs until the Council of Nicaea codified the doctrine of the Trinity. This is a complex area of discussion CB, and I did not mean to paint over that complexity. I was simply unaware that anyone was willing to look more deeply into the formualation of Church teachings, and how we reach them.

I hope this clears things up. And if you want to go into this in greater depth, please let me know. I certainly would like to do so.

Peace,

Nomad

penatis: The problem, as I see it, is that Nomad wishes to use one standard [HIS] by which to judge the historical validity of the NT and a totally different standard [common sense, logic, evidence, etc.] by which to judge the historical validity of all religious/historical literary works that have no bearing on the NT. Unfortunately, he does not seem to recognize the fact that he is using a double standard.

Nomad: No, I am trying to figure what your REAL complaint is.

No complaints. I enjoy life every single day. It does concern me when apologists pretend to know certain things when they actually don't. For example they sometimes pretend to KNOW who wrote the gospels and when they were written and where they were written. The gospels were anonymously written. No one knows for sure when or where they were written. These are facts, not opinions. Nomad can gush and blubber all he wants, but he cannot change the facts.


As near as I can figure, you are yet another disillusioned ex-fundamentalist that abandoned the faith once he found out that the Bible is not 100% inerrant.

I was a believer (but not a church-goer and with certain doubts) until I was about 25 years old. At 22 or 23, I began to read the Christian Bible. Shortly after that, I came to the conclusion that the Bible was written and inspired by human beings. Within a year or so, I began to see that there is no evidence for any god, nor is there any evidence that prayer works.

At no point did I ever become angry or upset with the Church or Christians. At no point was I ever a "fundamentalist."

Virtually all of my acquaintances, friends, and relatives are believers. I can love and respect those who disagree with me; however, I cannot respect anyone who resorts to name-calling and condescension.

Nomad: Since the traditional Christian faith, Church and doctrines have NEVER been built around such assumptions, I still fail to understand what your problem is.

Maybe, I don't have a problem.



Nomad: Based on this assumption, I see you as an individual that swallowed a bunch of crap very blindly in the past (spoon fed to you by your fundamentalist teachers), and now you swallow just as blindly the crap that is fed to you by your new atheistic teachers.

Nomad jumps to an erroneous conclusion and then begins to practice pseudo-psychology.

With respect to his "atheist" comment. I don't mind stating my position: I have no belief in the supernatural.

Fact: The existence of gods (including Zeus, RA, Yaweh, Christ as god, etc.), holy spirit, fairies, trolls, angels, the trinity, heaven, hell, soul, vampires, Saint Nick, ET, Satan, etc, can neither be proven, nor disproven.

In my view, people should have the right to believe whatever they wish, as long as they don't go around telling others what they MUST believe.


The world of faith is much larger than the narrow black and white one you have lived in thus far penatis. It is time to look at that larger world and see what you might learn.

I live in the real world. Every morning, I get up and take a real shower, put on real clothes, and go to a real job. I am married to a real wife and I have real children. As of today, I am real content with reality. Why? Because there is zero evidence to suggest the existence of anything outside of the real material world.

It is presumptuous and condescending for Nomad to tell me what I "can learn." Just who the hell does he think he is?

Nomad, just a quick clarifying queston: when you say "apostles" you are refering to.... who? Paul, and the 12(11). Anyone else? What in your esitmation is the role and significance of the early church-fathers? Origen, Augustine, Jerome, etc, etc - do you consider them apostles or not?

Thanks,
Andrew

Nomad,

See, now we're getting back into methodology, which is what I'm primarily interested in when I discuss doctrine.

There are several related points that I'd like to raise in addressing your response to me, and your subsequent discussion with Andrew/Bloodloss:

First, I’m not sure if you were referring to my use of urban legends as illustration, but if you were, you missed my intent in doing so. I use the urban legend phenomenon not as an illustration of the mutability of information (in fact, most UL’s are fairly reliably transmitted from one person to the next), but as an illustration of the average person’s willingness to believe a good story without bothering to check facts.

Second, I think you and the Church have played a subtle definition game to enable you to say that the Church has held the same belief set since the beginning. A reading of history, or even a reading of the Bible itself, reveals quite bit of doctrinal dispute early on, as Bloodloss notes. How do you still manage to claim that the Church has always held the same belief set? You define the holders of different belief sets out of the Church and re-label them as heretics.

Third, and slightly tongue in cheek, you state that if anyone had been trying to change doctrine we would surely see some written evidence of it. Funny…I said that if dead people had been strolling around Jerusalem we would surely have seen some written evidence and you responded that we have very few written records from that time and place... :P

-Pompous Bastard