FunkyRes

The canon that happened in 4 AD is because there was not complete agreement about what books/letters were valuable as scripture amongst the various branches.

Rather than be divided, it was decided to make such an authoritative canon that the various groups agreed upon.

At least that is my understanding of it.

The books that we have are the ones that were agreed upon at the council. The other ones either did not add anything, or had some theological disagreements, etc.

That is why the canon was put together.
That also is why I choose to accept them, since you asked.

In the case of the John epistles, if I was arguing for a same author and there were only two listed in the early canon's, you might have a point that one may not have been authored by the author of the others (afaik the text itself, though they are very small, lends support to same authorship of all three and non conclusively hints at same authorship [i]or good familiarity[/] with Gospel of John).

But we are not talking about John. We are talking abou Paul, and with the exception of a gnostic (which is contrary to the early church beliefs) all early lists of Paul include ALL his alleged letters.

If I'm not mistaken- the pastoral letters contain content dealing with gnosticism which would be a good reason for a gnostic to not want them.

His gnosticism is therefore enough for both him to reject the pastoral epistles AND for him to be excomunicated.

This puts serious doubt into wether his listing of Paul's letters was really exhaustive or not.

We know gnosticism was in contradiction to the early church- heresy.

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: FunkyRes ]</p>

FunkyRes

I'll look at the First Timothy issue.

Peter Kirby

FunkyRes writes:

The books that we have are the ones that were agreed upon at the council. The other ones either did not add anything, or had some theological disagreements, etc.

That is why the canon was put together.
That also is why I choose to accept them, since you asked.

Ok, so because some bishops got together in the fourth century and said that these are the books that we think are canonical, that is a good enough reason for your belief that they were inspired and written by the supposed authors? How do you know that these bishop guys in the fourth century had a clue? This is what I mean by 'obsequious'.

FunkyRes writes:

We are talking abou Paul, and with the exception of a gnostic (which is contrary to the early church beliefs) all early lists of Paul include ALL his alleged letters.

Wow, this is like the umpteenth time that you have neglected to mention the fact that the p46 manuscript also contains only ten epistles of Paul.

FunkyRes writes:

If I'm not mistaken- the pastoral letters contain content dealing with gnosticism which would be a good reason for a gnostic to not want them.

Marcion had a canon of ten Pauline epistles upon which he constructed his 'gnostic' theology, so there was a good reason for some second century writers to write some epistles attributed to Paul with which to refute Marcion. Remember again that Marcion's list of 10 is the earliest list.

And you never did substantiate your claim that the pastorals were written in Paul's style, let alone your original claim that "1 Timothy was written by Paul."

I look forward to your comments on 1 Tm 6:20. If this topic is interesting enough for you to research it, I would be quite interested to know what you think of the arguments used to establish the inauthenticity of the pastoral epistles that are expounded by Kummel in his Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 371-384.

best,
Peter Kirby

Radcliffe Emerson

We could form our own group of people (and we'd include women, unlike the early church) and decide what's canonical too, based on what we've been taught by our peers.
That wouldn't make what we chose any more inspired than any other book.

Radcliffe Emerson

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Atticus_Finch:
[QB]

You may choose to believe what you like. However, the question was what did Paul believe. This passage shows that he believed in a physical resurrection.

This church, Archdiocese of the Syriac Orthodox Church for the Eastern United States, says they are the oldest Christian church in the world. Here is an excerpt from their website:
Church History at a glance...


This Church enjoys the greatest prestige in the history of Christendom since it is the first Church which was established in Jerusalem out of the Apostles, Preachers and other converted Jews, and was grafted in Antioch by those who were converted from among the Arameans and other gentile elements. It can justifiably claim the wealthiest liturgical and musical heritage, besides a proud theological and missionary record. The Church and it's parishoners still use Syriac-Aramaic the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ. It suffered untold hardships and tragedies including massacres and repeated transfer of the See of the Patriarchate from one locality to another due to political and other developments until it settled in Damascus-Syria. Historians declare that the survival of this Church was nothing short of a miracle. The current Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, the Supreme Head of the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church is His Holiness Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka I Iwas. The Church provides spiritual guidance to over four million parishoners throughout the World.


They were isolated in the East when the Catholics and other Orthodox churches split up, then almost wiped out, but managed to survive.
Their basic belief concerning the resurrection is it was spiritual, not physical.
If the oldest surviving church believes that, it takes precedence for me over younger beliefs that it was physical.

FunkyRes

It does not prove that they were written by the supposed authors. But I am not arguing Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistels based upon the fourth century canon.

I don't know why it's not there.
But that seems to be an anomoly.

Also remember that, if Revelation was written late first century/early second, and also some of the gospels may be that late, that there may not have been a need for a list as only a few generations would have passed since these writings were made.

It is certainly possible that Marcion is the very reason why the Church Fathers started making lists of what was worthy of reading in the services and what was accurate.

There is plenty of scholarship out there that says this.
I would find it surprising if you have not come across it, for you seem better read than I.

I haven't looked at it yet, but I will.

-=-
btw-
If the dates above are accurate, these are all within the "100 year window"

Those are from <a href="http://www.bible.org/docs/nt/books/1ti/1tm-intr.htm" target="_blank">http://www.bible.org/docs/nt/books/1ti/1tm-intr.htm</a>

[ July 23, 2002: Message edited by: FunkyRes ]</p>

Peter Kirby

FunkyRes, I suggest that you look up the references for yourself. You may be surprised by what you find. With the exception of Irenaeus, none of these writers -- Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Hermas, Didache, Barnabas -- none of them "cites" or "quotes" the pastoral epistles as that web site claims (see the notes on the web site). None of them say, "it is written that" or "Paul said that." For that reason, the web site is fudging with the truth when it says that these documents cite or quote the pastoral epistles. At the very best, between a couple words and a sentence are shared between these documents and the pastorals, without credit being given in either the document or the pastoral letter. This leaves open entirely the possibility of independent incorporation of phrases common to preaching at the time, or even dependence of the pastoral epistles on earlier writers such as Clement of Rome.

best,
Peter Kirby

Radcliffe Emerson

[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: Radcliffe Emerson ]</p>

MOJO-JOJO

I think yours is a Vanilla Sky, n'est-ce pas? The only "other Paul" we know of is the one that hung out with John, George and Ringo. Did another Paul write letters back then? And who really wrote "Hey Jude"? Paul or John?

FunkyRes

OK-

I've decided to step down on Pauline authorship of the pastoral epistles.

I still think he wrote them, but I can't say the evidence is conclusive. At least not now.