Hazel-rah

Questions from an armchair scholar:

Did anyone catch that last night on the History Channel? I watched it, mostly to see what sort of tone it would take. It seemed to me to be standard Roos fare, the usual suspects trotted out and a fairly non-partisan attitude.

I was surprised, however, that the main reasons the experts give for the rejection of many of the apocryphal books is that the early Church leaders knew the books were written "too late" to be true. To me, this would imply that the early Church leaders had a sense of the timeline of these writings and how the timing affected the authenticity. If this is so, what were the criteria for being "early enough" to be authentic?

They also say that there are some books that just didn't fit the Christian agenda, despite being widely read among early Christians - for example, the Book of Enoch and Peter's Apocalypse. And some, like the Gospel of Mary, weren't put in because if it were inserted at the beginning of the NT for chronological reasons, it would take the emphasis off Jesus - despite it containing several key doctrinal reconciliations (like Mary's stepchildren), which I found surprising. Seems to me the Church fathers would have been wise to have given these books a higher place in Christian scholarship, if only so Sunday School teachers could refer to them to fill in blanks and explain contextual quirks - I consider myself well-educated, and I'd never heard of some of these before.

Anyway - my comments. I'd like to hear from anyone here who saw it, or who has seen similar Roos or History Channel programs - how do they measure up as far as scholarship or a slant of any kind?

jbernier

My general perspective is that the diversity of literature in early Christian literature is due to a diversity in early Christianity itself. There were, spread throughout the Roman empire and beyond, a large number of Christianities which were in contact with each to varying extents. Eventually some of these Christianities coalesced to form the Catholic/Orthodox tradition; others got labelled by this tradition as heresy. The communities that formed this Catholic/Orthodox tradition probably always had historical connections with each other and used certain writings in common; these writings formed the core of the canon. However, there were writings that were held in different regard in different communities and traditions. As the communities with which they were associated became marginalized and condemned by the growing Catholic/Orthodox synthesis so would many of the particular literatures that were unique to these groups.

King Rat

I watched it.

One funny part was a priest commenting that the Gospel of Mary was akin to a "romance novel" and had the same credibility. The irony was so thick that I could have used it on pancakes. I wonder how he feels about Psalms?

TheFisherman

You could make a show and show someone who has "credentials" and edit out the negative, keep the positive and make anything sound legitimate.

I saw that show, but I think I saw it about a year ago... I thought it was funny to think that some things "weren't allowed" the bible. IMO, that just adds further credence to the the bible as a useless artifact in support of the existence of god, at least where xtianity is concerned.

Machiavelli

[evangelspeak] The way they chose what books to keep was all lord-led[/evangelspeak]

Anyway,

I liked the story of the second century christian Marceon(sp). Basically said that the OT was evil and that God was an evil god and Jesus was sent to save us from him. Makes more sense to me than the duplicitous relationship that christians have with the old and new testaments.

I've been really interested in the formation of the first christian bibles lately. Anyone willing to recommend a good book? I'm really interested in seeing what motivated Constantine. Who was influencing him and what political problems was he having to deal with at the time that he may be trying to solve with Christianity.

Gosh, what if Licinius hadn't have lost.

littlegirlost

I blush to think of him reading the Song of Solomon... downright indecent!

Biff the unclean

I was amazed on that history Channel show about how pleasant the early church fathers were to one another about what to include in canon. How Christian of them

King Rat

Another interesting part was the Jewish Theologian saying "Genesis cannot be taken literally, to take it literally is to completely misunderstand the narrative and destroy it's spirtual meaning."

Magdlyn

Who Wrote the New Testament by Mack, or Who Wrote the Bible by Friedman for Torah.

Or The New Oxford Annotated Bible for the Bible itself with lots of notes and essays.


And that is a diferent question and would need a different book. There is much misinformation about Constantines's beliefs and edicts on the net, that is for sure. (Hint: he did not "convert," ie: become baptised, until just before his death. He did not make Xtianity the state religion in his lifetime.) I will leave it to those more knowledgable to rec the "best" book. Or to argue my above recs are no good!

While we wait, this site bears some bias but does duscuss C's political milieu:

http://ragz-international.com/christ...onstantine.htm

Toto

It's Marcion. Marcion probably constructed the first "Bible", and orthodox Christians put their Bible together to counter his.

You would probably be interested in The Formation of the New Testament Canon, which summarizes Bruce Metzger's The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance .

Last thread on Constantine.