Chili

So here again there is no such thing as Christian theology because the Christian proper has the mind of Christ, and very much like Paul who did not have a revelation but was gnostic with the mind of Christ, but not a Gnostic as that was a heresy spelled with a capital G, like any -ism would be.

Chili

The great commision is anti-christ driven by preachers with their ass on fire for the Lord. I wrote so often that Jesus is to be followed but not worshiped and as much as take him down from the cross and place yourself upon it.

Instead they say: he died for me and now I do not have to, and so a saved-sinner they will remain, destroying not just our own world the the entire world with their Gospel they misread.

mountainman

Those who were powerfully attracted to the Nicaean church officialdom were scarcely interested in the texts or in their contradictions. The evidence from that epoch clearly shows that those who vied to become the bishops appointed by Constantine were firmly influenced by the tax exemptions offered to the church officialdom. The evidence is that Constantine had to legislate against clever rich pagans who were rushing to become bishops because of the tax exemptions.

stephan huller

This is an example of a misleading question which only seems to be a 'fair question' because of the biases of those attracted to it. Imagine for a moment if we substituted 'Jennifer Lopez in her marriage' for 'the Church' - you can see how silly the question is (I hope). In other words, life is filled with contradictions. Marriages have contradictions or unresolved tension just like religions do. The presumption here is that Christianity was founded on a conspiracy so it should have been able to 'smooth over' contradictions. But the fact that there are 'contradictions' isn't proof of anything other than Christianity existed in this world which is filled with such. This is about as useful asking, why isn't my penis bigger? Or why am I so ugly? It just is what it is.

Duvduv

I strongly disagree Stephan. If the church had a charter, a canon to promote throughout the empire, it stands to reason that we would want to understand what they might have been thinking if they saw that the canon had some glaring unresolved contradictions that might make acceptance of their religion either easier or harder.
MM has some interesting observations related to rationales of pure self interest that may have superseded all else. Especially concerning generations of the literati after the initial period. Even to the present day.

Cheerful Charlie

There was no real canon until Marcion created one for his sect and forced what would become orthodox Christianity to respond. There were several 3rd century meetings of high ranking Christians, unoficially who started gathering materials and discussing this issue. It would as a project not be finalized until about 398 CE.. The last stages were at official councils. The materials were to widespread and known to edit them to a great extent. Origen and others developed the idea that one could allegorize away the contradictions et al. Most of what happened was not written down for our benefit.
we have Ireneus' idea of the four gospels, Marcion early on accepted ten epistles, rejection the pastorals so we know that by the 2nd century at least these were widely known. He was accused of modifying Luke, the gospel he used as the Marcionites basic historical writing. And of course, no two early manuscripts were quite the same. There are a number of sober books on how all this worked out. Probably the best bet would to google around to see what seems scholarly with as little a theological bias as possible.

Cheerful Charlie

Sheshbazzar

Well stated Charlie.

outhouse

shared some reputation myself for that one

Jaybees

Opening statement of OP: "The issue here is not why the original AUTHORS of the texts included so many contradictions or discrepancies in their own texts but rather why CHURCH officialdom accepted them as they appeared in the texts and never contemplated reconciling them permanently or addressing them in apologetics."


Contradictions? What contradictions? These are divinely inspired texts. There are NO contradictions, not even the possibility of contradictions in those sacred words, though to the limited mind of man there may seem to be some.

To tamper with them--even to comment on them--is tantamount to questioning the word of the Almighty God. Definitely a no, no.

stephan huller

Count the number of 'ifs' in one sentence:

Does anyone have to consider something that has two 'ifs' in the same sentence? If there was advanced life on Mars then they must be watching television if they managed to harness electricity.

MM and 'interesting' only belong in the same sentence if you are willing to devote a thread to a proposition that has two ifs in the same sentence.