Problems coming to terms with early Christianity

[Tippy]

I started reading this book recently:

The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and …

A radical and powerful reappraisal of the impact of Con…

www.goodreads.com

The main argument in this book is basically that the canonical books of the New Testament were organised and edited in such a way that was not a true depiction of the intentions of Jesus and disciplies at the time.

How sure can we be about what Jesus was on earth to do when the canon has been selected to present a certain argument? And also the details we do have of how Jesus operated seems to not be totally in line with later understandings of his purpose on earth.
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I want to quote or comment some things from this book which troubled me to understand and I would like to hear some alternative thoughts on:

'It is now argued not only that he preached and taught within Judaism but even that he was advocating a return to traditional Jewish values.'

'Jesus had come not to abolish but to complete the law'

'I tell you then, that the kingdom of God will be taken from you (jews who rejected me) and even to people who will produce its fruit' (Matthew) This sometimes used as an argument for rejecting Judaism but apparently Matthew has origins as a jewish text?

There was also apparently a jewish sect called the Essenes which talked of return of messiah and ascetic living which later influenced Paul.

Jesus was a jew. His follows were jews. A lot of his teaching was in Synagogues and in Matthew he states 'I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and to them alone.'

This book describes Jesus as a leader who 'reinforced rather than threatened traditional Jewish values.' Also, the apostles saw themselves as part of judaism and observed jewish rituals.

The book later goes on to talk about how the importance of resurrection and sexual ascetism was developed significantly by Paul. The book makes the argument that Paul's appeals to gentiles was partially because he received so much opposition.

'His first Christian mission was to jews. Like the apostles, he did not see himself as working outside Judaism.'

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Basically, if Christianity as we know it today was shaped by people interpreting things later (starting with Paul) and who have presented the information in a certain context to support their own aims/ideals, is there really ONE true religion? And is not all Christianity a kind of sect and offshoot of Judaism since that's where it truly began and what was believed when Jesus was alive and what the first followers of Jesus and Jesus himself were?

 

[Blade Runner]

These are good and important questions, and you have some category issues. I think I may be able to help you here, at least to start thinking about it.

How sure can we be about what Jesus was on earth to do when the canon has been selected to present a certain argument? And also the details we do have of how Jesus operated seems to not be totally in line with later understandings of his purpose on earth.

The "canon" was selected because it was the reliable teaching of the gospel (evangelion). Would you call the faith delivered once and for all, to the apostles and then (hopefully, let's say) to us, "selected to present a certain argument"? That already has tones of distrust, but it need not. It could just be reliable, true, genuine, etc. Early Saints have apologetics dealing with all of this (Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, etc) and later Saints confirm this in their teachings AND actions. Yes, you have to decide if the Saints that are well pleasing to God throughout the ages are reliable.

Jesus was a jew. His follows were jews

This is a common mistake of language, used frequently in our age. There are "jews" around right now, correct? They are anti-christs in that they deny the Christ, that is, the god-man, Jesus Christ. Would you therefore call them the same name as those who followed Christ, or Christ himself? That makes no sense. So no, they weren't. OR, they were, and the new "jews" that you might come across ARE SOMETHING ELSE.

'His first Christian mission was to jews. Like the apostles, he did not see himself as working outside Judaism.'

The parable of the Samaritan woman at the well refutes this idea entirely (that comes to mind at the moment). He even tells her that they don't know what they worship, but still reveals that he is the Christ and others are convinced, believing in God and have been made part of the "harvest".

Basically, if Christianity as we know it today was shaped by people interpreting things later (starting with Paul) and who have presented the information in a certain context to support their own aims/ideals, is there really ONE true religion?

Looking at it this way is not as useful as you might think it is. Even though you may know I believe Orthodox Christianity to be the fullness of the Truth about "Christianity" the fact is, Christianity is revelation, not "religion". The reason hierarchy and teachings are important, however, is because we have to be able to define and defend certain things that are required to be part of the body of Christ.

 

[Iakobos]

Glad you brought your questions here. Some points in no real order, forgive me if I become strident and I can see Blade Runner hit on some of this while I was typing my response:

#1: Presuming you correctly present the premise of the book, there is not actually any evidence that the NT was "organized and edited to hide the truth." This is pure speculation with nothing concrete to back it up. Gnostics love to just throw this claim out with speculation behind it and pretend like it's fact. If he has any ACTUAL EVIDENCE of fraud or deception in the early Church (not "well this Bible verse seems to contradict this Bible verse according to my interpretation" etc.) I'd be grateful for you to relay it.

#2: The book description on Goodreads says that Constantine changed Rome from a "open, tolerant society to a culture of fixed authority." This is one of the most ridiculous sentences I've ever read. He thinks that Christianity, in the 4TH CENTURY AD, caused Rome to become authority worshippers? Christians were murdered for refusing to worship the emperor for hundreds of years before Constantine!

#3: You (and presumably the author) keep using the term "Judaism" which is a poor choice of words because the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not the religion of "Judaism" as it is known today.

#4: This playing with "Judaism" is problematic because here's the reality of Christianity: God is the Truth and revealed Himself from the beginning. There is ultimately no "traditional Judaism vs. Christianity" because "traditional Judaism" (I infer you and the author are talking about the Pentateuch), is simply God's Truth as revealed to His Prophets. This meaningless term of "traditional Judaism" is useful for nothing other than being twisted and sowing confusion. There is NOT an opposition, there is a CONTINUATION of the Truth.

#5: Why does the notion of Matthew being a text directed toward the Jews, mean that it can't convey the threat that if said Jews continue to be hardhearted, they will be left out of the Kingdom?

#6 So what if Jesus was a Jew and his followers were Jews and he taught in Synagogues? What does that have to do with any of the points at hand? There is a continuity between OT and NT and it seems like the author is ignorant of it or more likely being deceptive as I don't think anyone writing such a book could in good faith write the above sentence about pagan Rome being in opposition to "fixed authority."

#7: So what if they participated in "Jewish" rituals? Did you know that the Orthodox Liturgy preserves the same manner of worship from ancient times including a procession with the Holy Gospel and singing of the Psalms? Burning of incense? An inner alter where the sacrifice is carried out? Would you say therefore that the Orthodox Church is "Jewish" or the "Judaism" religion? I supposed you could, but I don't think it would bear scrutiny.

There is a very clear break in the middle when the second part of the Liturgy begins which is the celebration of the Eucharist. This is how Christianity began... they would worship with the Jews and then celebrate the Eucharist afterward. Correct worship of God is correct worship of God and this guy is apparently trying to appeal to those tempted by Pagan white supremacy stuff by calling everything "Jewish" as if that's a bad thing when we're talking about the tradition of worshipping God and following His commandments.

#8: You're entirely leaving out the actual early Church from the picture. This is typical of "Constantine invented Christianity" conspiracies. It's not a black hole enigma of a riddle that we can only speculate about. Christ founded an actual Church, with actual people, who received the actual Holy Spirit, who laid on their hands to appoint actual successors, which has been going on since then. Church tradition that was passed down from the Apostles is more than the letters themselves. They spent YEARS in those various communities teaching and elaborating on the Gospel & the Scriptures. Therefore the understanding of the Church, was not random people making things up as convenient, but a body of wise & holy spiritual Fathers who came from the Apostles themselves. If you're interested in the early Church, I would recommend the writings of the Saints of the early Church, rather than gnostic pagan revisionism. Forgive me if you've already done such reading but your post strongly suggests to me that you haven't.

Ultimately, it's really not that complicated. You have to come from the starting point of: Did the Creator, who has a Will and a Design, bring His Truth into the world? If yes, this argument about Constantine & co. changing everything up and hiding the truth to take down le awesome progressive pagans is self-evidently nonsense. (In fact, the Roman Empire converting is a fulfillment of prophecy.) If your answer is "no" or "I don't know," then you are at a juncture where you must look for truth in your heart and in your relationship with God.

In addition to reading the early Church Fathers, I'd look into the topic of Theophanies in the Old Testament (Christ is present many times in the OT), and possibly some Fr. Stephen de Young material on the early Church (he has some kinda oddball pet topics that I'm unsure about but on the whole he has a strong broad understanding & presentation that cuts through the BS lies that there is a discontinuity between pre-Christian worship and post-incarnation worship).

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Looks like you've wandered into the fringe, liberal scholarship.

How sure can we be about what Jesus was on earth to do when the canon has been selected to present a certain argument?

If the Canon was indeed "selected" then this would be a valid question. Any serious inquiry into how the traditional NT canon came to be would dispel any such notion. The Canon was not "selected" by a group of monks in a smoky room. The 4 Canonical Gospels cohere with each other, unlike the Gnostic gospels that crept up along the side. Both in terms of internal and external evidence.

'It is now argued not only that he preached and taught within Judaism but even that he was advocating a return to traditional Jewish values.'

Jesus promising that God would destroy the Temple in righteous judgement is anything but Him simply calling for a reformation of traditional Jewish values. Though, He did indeed come to fulfill the Law.

'Jesus had come not to abolish but to complete the law'

Which He did.

This sometimes used as an argument for rejecting Judaism but apparently Matthew has origins as a jewish text?

No concrete evidence to back that up whatsoever. It's pure speculation.

There was also apparently a jewish sect called the Essenes which talked of return of messiah and ascetic living which later influenced Paul.

And?

Jesus was a jew. His follows were jews. A lot of his teaching was in Synagogues and in Matthew he states 'I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and to them alone.'

He says that, as He is helping a non-Israelite woman, which should reveal Jesus's understanding of who "Israel" is (anyone who believes in Him).

This book describes Jesus as a leader who 'reinforced rather than threatened traditional Jewish values.' Also, the apostles saw themselves as part of judaism and observed jewish rituals.

Based on what? The writings of the Apostles themselves say otherwise.

The book later goes on to talk about how the importance of resurrection and sexual ascetism was developed significantly by Paul. The book makes the argument that Paul's appeals to gentiles was partially because he received so much opposition.

"Development" is a buzz word. Even before Paul, the Canonical Gospels teach that Jesus was bodily resurrected.

Basically, if Christianity as we know it today was shaped by people interpreting things later (starting with Paul) and who have presented the information in a certain context to support their own aims/ideals, is there really ONE true religion? And is not all Christianity a kind of sect and offshoot of Judaism since that's where it truly began and what was believed when Jesus was alive and what the first followers of Jesus and Jesus himself were?

The liberals love to pit Paul against Jesus and present them as teaching two different Christianities. Even some Orthodox Jews admit that they don't really have a problem with Jesus, but they hate Paul. The only way someone could arrive at this is to have a very surface level understanding of the New Testament or a bias against Christianity from the outset, which all of these liberal scholars do.

 

[Wutang]

Pretty much all Jews of all sects were looking for the Messiah to come and they specifically were looking for an earthly king that would drive out the Romans and would rule as a king in the temporal sense. It wasn't something unique to the Essenes.

Also if Jesus was really set on reinforcing existing Jewish values, why did he clash so much with the leadership that were supposed to be the ones that were preserving them? Recall the grumbling they had over Him not washing his hands when they thought an observant Jew was supposed to, healing on the Sabbath, and such. He was "completing" the law in a manner that they found discordant with Judaism.

 

[Aboulia]

#2: The book description on Goodreads says that Constantine changed Rome from a "open, tolerant society to a culture of fixed authority." This is one of the most ridiculous sentences I've ever read. He thinks that Christianity, in the 4TH CENTURY AD, caused Rome to become authority worshippers? Christians were murdered for refusing to worship the emperor for hundreds of years before Constantine!

Also to add, the Arian heresy was this same idea rehashed, which was rejected at the First Ecumenical Council.

Also, the apostles saw themselves as part of judaism and observed jewish rituals.

How sure can we be about what Jesus was on earth to do when the canon has been selected to present a certain argument? And also the details we do have of how Jesus operated seems to not be totally in line with later understandings of his purpose on earth.

What exactly is that argument? That the world was a unity at some point, and that man should mourn for what he lost, and try to restore what he can with God's help? In order for something to be broken, there first has to exist a unity.

Vague suggestions do nothing to make a case, you'd have to flesh it out more, but I doubt this author has a good case, He supposedly likes the Greeks, but if he can't see an improved version of Plato's theory of forms within Christianity, he's blind, or perhaps accepting money to act so.

The parable of the Samaritan woman at the well refutes this idea entirely (that comes to mind at the moment). He even tells her that they don't know what they worship, but still reveals that he is the Christ and others are convinced, believing in God and have been made part of the "harvest".

And the parables of the wine skins/wedding feast, shows that he will bring others from outside within, and it will be a little different. Not to mention the withered fig tree was what God was going to do with the form of Judaism of the day.

 

[Tippy]

Glad you brought your questions here. Some points in no real order, forgive me if I become strident and I can see Blade Runner hit on some of this while I was typing my response:

#1: Presuming you correctly present the premise of the book, there is not actually any evidence that the NT was "organized and edited to hide the truth." This is pure speculation with nothing concrete to back it up. Gnostics love to just throw this claim out with speculation behind it and pretend like it's fact. If he has any ACTUAL EVIDENCE of fraud or deception in the early Church (not "well this Bible verse seems to contradict this Bible verse according to my interpretation" etc.) I'd be grateful for you to relay it.

#2: The book description on Goodreads says that Constantine changed Rome from a "open, tolerant society to a culture of fixed authority." This is one of the most ridiculous sentences I've ever read. He thinks that Christianity, in the 4TH CENTURY AD, caused Rome to become authority worshippers? Christians were murdered for refusing to worship the emperor for hundreds of years before Constantine!

#3: You (and presumably the author) keep using the term "Judaism" which is a poor choice of words because the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not the religion of "Judaism" as it is known today.

#4: This playing with "Judaism" is problematic because here's the reality of Christianity: God is the Truth and revealed Himself from the beginning. There is ultimately no "traditional Judaism vs. Christianity" because "traditional Judaism" (I infer you and the author are talking about the Pentateuch), is simply God's Truth as revealed to His Prophets. This meaningless term of "traditional Judaism" is useful for nothing other than being twisted and sowing confusion. There is NOT an opposition, there is a CONTINUATION of the Truth.

#5: Why does the notion of Matthew being a text directed toward the Jews, mean that it can't convey the threat that if said Jews continue to be hardhearted, they will be left out of the Kingdom?

#6 So what if Jesus was a Jew and his followers were Jews and he taught in Synagogues? What does that have to do with any of the points at hand? There is a continuity between OT and NT and it seems like the author is ignorant of it or more likely being deceptive as I don't think anyone writing such a book could in good faith write the above sentence about pagan Rome being in opposition to "fixed authority."

#7: So what if they participated in "Jewish" rituals? Did you know that the Orthodox Liturgy preserves the same manner of worship from ancient times including a procession with the Holy Gospel and singing of the Psalms? Burning of incense? An inner alter where the sacrifice is carried out? Would you say therefore that the Orthodox Church is "Jewish" or the "Judaism" religion? I supposed you could, but I don't think it would bear scrutiny.

There is a very clear break in the middle when the second part of the Liturgy begins which is the celebration of the Eucharist. This is how Christianity began... they would worship with the Jews and then celebrate the Eucharist afterward. Correct worship of God is correct worship of God and this guy is apparently trying to appeal to those tempted by Pagan white supremacy stuff by calling everything "Jewish" as if that's a bad thing when we're talking about the tradition of worshipping God and following His commandments.

#8: You're entirely leaving out the actual early Church from the picture. This is typical of "Constantine invented Christianity" conspiracies. It's not a black hole enigma of a riddle that we can only speculate about. Christ founded an actual Church, with actual people, who received the actual Holy Spirit, who laid on their hands to appoint actual successors, which has been going on since then. Church tradition that was passed down from the Apostles is more than the letters themselves. They spent YEARS in those various communities teaching and elaborating on the Gospel & the Scriptures. Therefore the understanding of the Church, was not random people making things up as convenient, but a body of wise & holy spiritual Fathers who came from the Apostles themselves. If you're interested in the early Church, I would recommend the writings of the Saints of the early Church, rather than gnostic pagan revisionism. Forgive me if you've already done such reading but your post strongly suggests to me that you haven't.

Ultimately, it's really not that complicated. You have to come from the starting point of: Did the Creator, who has a Will and a Design, bring His Truth into the world? If yes, this argument about Constantine & co. changing everything up and hiding the truth to take down le awesome progressive pagans is self-evidently nonsense. (In fact, the Roman Empire converting is a fulfillment of prophecy.) If your answer is "no" or "I don't know," then you are at a juncture where you must look for truth in your heart and in your relationship with God.

In addition to reading the early Church Fathers, I'd look into the topic of Theophanies in the Old Testament (Christ is present many times in the OT), and possibly some Fr. Stephen de Young material on the early Church (he has some kinda oddball pet topics that I'm unsure about but on the whole he has a strong broad understanding & presentation that cuts through the BS lies that there is a discontinuity between pre-Christian worship and post-incarnation worship).

Glad you brought your questions here. Some points in no real order, forgive me if I become strident and I can see Blade Runner hit on some of this while I was typing my response:

#1: Presuming you correctly present the premise of the book, there is not actually any evidence that the NT was "organized and edited to hide the truth." This is pure speculation with nothing concrete to back it up. Gnostics love to just throw this claim out with speculation behind it and pretend like it's fact. If he has any ACTUAL EVIDENCE of fraud or deception in the early Church (not "well this Bible verse seems to contradict this Bible verse according to my interpretation" etc.) I'd be grateful for you to relay it.

#2: The book description on Goodreads says that Constantine changed Rome from a "open, tolerant society to a culture of fixed authority." This is one of the most ridiculous sentences I've ever read. He thinks that Christianity, in the 4TH CENTURY AD, caused Rome to become authority worshippers? Christians were murdered for refusing to worship the emperor for hundreds of years before Constantine!

#3: You (and presumably the author) keep using the term "Judaism" which is a poor choice of words because the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not the religion of "Judaism" as it is known today.

#4: This playing with "Judaism" is problematic because here's the reality of Christianity: God is the Truth and revealed Himself from the beginning. There is ultimately no "traditional Judaism vs. Christianity" because "traditional Judaism" (I infer you and the author are talking about the Pentateuch), is simply God's Truth as revealed to His Prophets. This meaningless term of "traditional Judaism" is useful for nothing other than being twisted and sowing confusion. There is NOT an opposition, there is a CONTINUATION of the Truth.

#5: Why does the notion of Matthew being a text directed toward the Jews, mean that it can't convey the threat that if said Jews continue to be hardhearted, they will be left out of the Kingdom?

#6 So what if Jesus was a Jew and his followers were Jews and he taught in Synagogues? What does that have to do with any of the points at hand? There is a continuity between OT and NT and it seems like the author is ignorant of it or more likely being deceptive as I don't think anyone writing such a book could in good faith write the above sentence about pagan Rome being in opposition to "fixed authority."

#7: So what if they participated in "Jewish" rituals? Did you know that the Orthodox Liturgy preserves the same manner of worship from ancient times including a procession with the Holy Gospel and singing of the Psalms? Burning of incense? An inner alter where the sacrifice is carried out? Would you say therefore that the Orthodox Church is "Jewish" or the "Judaism" religion? I supposed you could, but I don't think it would bear scrutiny.

There is a very clear break in the middle when the second part of the Liturgy begins which is the celebration of the Eucharist. This is how Christianity began... they would worship with the Jews and then celebrate the Eucharist afterward. Correct worship of God is correct worship of God and this guy is apparently trying to appeal to those tempted by Pagan white supremacy stuff by calling everything "Jewish" as if that's a bad thing when we're talking about the tradition of worshipping God and following His commandments.

#8: You're entirely leaving out the actual early Church from the picture. This is typical of "Constantine invented Christianity" conspiracies. It's not a black hole enigma of a riddle that we can only speculate about. Christ founded an actual Church, with actual people, who received the actual Holy Spirit, who laid on their hands to appoint actual successors, which has been going on since then. Church tradition that was passed down from the Apostles is more than the letters themselves. They spent YEARS in those various communities teaching and elaborating on the Gospel & the Scriptures. Therefore the understanding of the Church, was not random people making things up as convenient, but a body of wise & holy spiritual Fathers who came from the Apostles themselves. If you're interested in the early Church, I would recommend the writings of the Saints of the early Church, rather than gnostic pagan revisionism. Forgive me if you've already done such reading but your post strongly suggests to me that you haven't.

Ultimately, it's really not that complicated. You have to come from the starting point of: Did the Creator, who has a Will and a Design, bring His Truth into the world? If yes, this argument about Constantine & co. changing everything up and hiding the truth to take down le awesome progressive pagans is self-evidently nonsense. (In fact, the Roman Empire converting is a fulfillment of prophecy.) If your answer is "no" or "I don't know," then you are at a juncture where you must look for truth in your heart and in your relationship with God.

In addition to reading the early Church Fathers, I'd look into the topic of Theophanies in the Old Testament (Christ is present many times in the OT), and possibly some Fr. Stephen de Young material on the early Church (he has some kinda oddball pet topics that I'm unsure about but on the whole he has a strong broad understanding & presentation that cuts through the BS lies that there is a discontinuity between pre-Christian worship and post-incarnation worship).

Thank you for the detailed response.

He also writes 'what is usually concealed in the histories of early Christianity is the tensions between different groups.'

'The canon was a deliberate attempt to exclude certain voices from early period of Christianity, heretics, Marcionites, Gnosticism, Jewish Christians.'

....'there were many conflicting interpretations of the status, purpose and relationships between the three divine forces. There was not even a consensus on what salvation meant.'

'It took much longer to complete a canon of early Christian texts as it involved choosing between a large number of competing texts (including the twenty gospels already mentioned) which were selected on the basis of their conformity with the evolution of doctrine'

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The question is, did early Christian thinkers make a decision to create the canon from a selection of some texts over others? And if so, how did they do that and why?

It appears plenty of thinkers have disagreed over what core aspecs of Christianity are since the inception and times immediaely after Jesus' death. Lots of things appear left up to interpretation. Just makes it all very confusing.

 

[Aboulia]

He also writes 'what is usually concealed in the histories of early Christianity is the tensions between different groups.'

'The canon was a deliberate attempt to exclude certain voices from early period of Christianity, heretics, Marcionites, Gnosticism, Jewish Christians.'

It's not concealed, the first examples that come to mind are St Irenaeus of Lyons and St John of Damascus both wrote about heretics, and you must by nature exclude that which is contrary to the purpose of the gathering together. All people may become Christians, but they have to leave their silly ideas at the door. God chose St. Matthew to be an apostle in accordance with his design, and not people like Simon Magus, and no amount of whining by Liberal ecumenists will ever change that.

The Lord Jesus Christ is only recorded writing once. On sand. Because words can be twisted and meanings can be lost.

The question is, did early Christian thinkers make a decision to create the canon from a selection of some texts over others? And if so, how did they do that and why?

A decision was reached through much prayer because there must be unity in the body, St Paul calls the people to be of one mind. If differing opinions are causing people to fall from the faith, there's obviously some filthy ideas that must be excluded from the body, Why does a person vomit? Is it not because the body knows it contains something in the stomach that it cannot integrate into itself?

Since you're Roman Catholic, and the split happened 600 years after this event, the miracle of St Euphemia is part of your heritage. It's an example of how the Church resolved some disputes.

The Miracle of St Euphemia the Martyr - Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Blog - Orthodox Church

For the feast of Saint Euphemia.

blogs.goarch.org

 

[Iakobos]

Thank you for the detailed response.

He also writes 'what is usually concealed in the histories of early Christianity is the tensions between different groups.'

'The canon was a deliberate attempt to exclude certain voices from early period of Christianity, heretics, Marcionites, Gnosticism, Jewish Christians.'

....'there were many conflicting interpretations of the status, purpose and relationships between the three divine forces. There was not even a consensus on what salvation meant.'

'It took much longer to complete a canon of early Christian texts as it involved choosing between a large number of competing texts (including the twenty gospels already mentioned) which were selected on the basis of their conformity with the evolution of doctrine'

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The question is, did early Christian thinkers make a decision to create the canon from a selection of some texts over others? And if so, how did they do that and why?

It appears plenty of thinkers have disagreed over what core aspecs of Christianity are since the inception and times immediaely after Jesus' death. Lots of things appear left up to interpretation. Just makes it all very confusing.

As Aboulia says, these early disagreements were not concealed in the slightest. Another one of the author's deceptions. As an example look up Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus - it's a huge tome explicitly detailing and debunking various gnostic heresies that had developed in the century since the apostles. Even in the Gospels, and in Acts, there are disagreements clearly shown! Christ mediates in the former case and the Holy Spirit in the latter. Many of the epistles are addressed toward churches that have controversy among them. There is countless more evidence.

I suppose he is trying to slyly imply that if there wasn't unanimous agreement, then there either was no truth or the real truth was *~*covered up*~*? This is completely fallacious. The fact that there were disagreements doesn't mean the right answer doesn't exist or wasn't arrived at. I would say if the Christian story, teaching and theology was 100% agreed upon everywhere since the start and no one ever tried to corrupt for their own gain... I would be more skeptical! This is not human nature. The great example of Simon Magus was enumerated earlier.

The author moans that they didn't accept heresy as part of their doctrine? Why on earth would they? If only they were like the inclusive and open-minded Greco-Romans then they would have respected the heretic's personal truth? It seems the author is anti-Truth and he appears to be leading you that way:

is there really ONE true religion?

Do you think that two directly contradictory statements or ideas or principles can both be simultaneously true? Do you believe that objective Truth exists? It seems like these may be some of the deeper questions you are wrestling with which are quite foundational for the Christian worldview.

---

I'll issue you a friendly challenge. You quoted the author as mentioning 20+ mysterious 'gospel' texts that were excluded. Show me one of the texts, or an excerpt, that in your or the author's eyes contains Truth that was maliciously excluded from the Biblical canon, and give me your reasons to believe it is true and not a falsehood. It would be an easy challenge if the author presented such a thing.

Of course you don't actually need to do this but I'm trying to make a point. Everything you've quoted this guy as saying is smoke and mirrors, including outright falsehoods that I and others have pointed out ITT. You've repeatedly noted that you are "confused" and "troubled" after reading this material. Have you considered that may be the purpose of the text?

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

I'm going to recommend a book to you @Tippy, I think it would benefit you to read it. It's called The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Michael Kruger. You and TrainedLogosmotion both have wandered into the Bart Ehrman, liberal side of early Christian scholarship. Both of your positions are highly susceptible to this kind of attack, which is why TrainedLogosmotion ended up apostatizing. The Heresy of Orthodoxy examines this postmodern critique of early Christianity, and shows how these critiques have more to do with the postmodern worldview than they have to do with historical reality. I haven't read your book here, but I'm willing to bet The Heresy of Orthodoxy would come across like a direct response to it.

 

[Lawrence87]

There is a big misunderstanding that Christianity is somehow an offshoot of Judiasm that was more or less similar to modern day Judiasm. Modern Judaism is in large part a reaction to Christianity and doesn't bear a great deal of resemblance to any of the different sects that were present in the Second Temple period.

The Apostles didn't yet have a New Testament when they preached. When Acts refers to them preaching Christ from the Scriptures they mean the Old Testament. The reason many Jews converted and became Christian was because they could see that Christ is the fulfilment of those Scriptures.

To call Christianity an offshoot is not a correct understanding of what happened. The fact that the temple was destroyed shortly after the advent of Christianity is not an accident. Christianity is the true continuation of the religion of the Prophets and true believers of the Old Testament. What remains today as Judiasm is the reactionary cult of those who stubbornly continue to reject their own Messiah and the fulfilment of their own Scriptures.

 

[GoodShepherd]

I started reading this book recently:

The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and …

A radical and powerful reappraisal of the impact of Con…

www.goodreads.com

The main argument in this book is basically that the canonical books of the New Testament were organised and edited in such a way that was not a true depiction of the intentions of Jesus and disciplies at the time.

How sure can we be about what Jesus was on earth to do when the canon has been selected to present a certain argument? And also the details we do have of how Jesus operated seems to not be totally in line with later understandings of his purpose on earth.
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I want to quote or comment some things from this book which troubled me to understand and I would like to hear some alternative thoughts on:

'It is now argued not only that he preached and taught within Judaism but even that he was advocating a return to traditional Jewish values.'

'Jesus had come not to abolish but to complete the law'

'I tell you then, that the kingdom of God will be taken from you (jews who rejected me) and even to people who will produce its fruit' (Matthew) This sometimes used as an argument for rejecting Judaism but apparently Matthew has origins as a jewish text?

There was also apparently a jewish sect called the Essenes which talked of return of messiah and ascetic living which later influenced Paul.

Jesus was a jew. His follows were jews. A lot of his teaching was in Synagogues and in Matthew he states 'I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and to them alone.'

This book describes Jesus as a leader who 'reinforced rather than threatened traditional Jewish values.' Also, the apostles saw themselves as part of judaism and observed jewish rituals.

The book later goes on to talk about how the importance of resurrection and sexual ascetism was developed significantly by Paul. The book makes the argument that Paul's appeals to gentiles was partially because he received so much opposition.

'His first Christian mission was to jews. Like the apostles, he did not see himself as working outside Judaism.'

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Basically, if Christianity as we know it today was shaped by people interpreting things later (starting with Paul) and who have presented the information in a certain context to support their own aims/ideals, is there really ONE true religion? And is not all Christianity a kind of sect and offshoot of Judaism since that's where it truly began and what was believed when Jesus was alive and what the first followers of Jesus and Jesus himself were?

Judiasm and Christianity were not two seperate religions, when Jesus walked the earth they were one and the same, Christ is the fulfillment of Judiasm, the first Christians were all Jews, the goal of God was through the Hebrew people to bring salvation to all the people of the world, the gentile nations BUT the majority of the Jewish people rejected Christ as we know.

Yes there were various sects of Judiasm there wasnt one united Judiasm, even in the gospels we read of saducees and pharases they were different, I have heard of the Essenese, they were very strict, they didnt marry and you basically had to do a one year trial run to see if its for you before you officially join. Its basically like the monks that Christianity has, John the baptist was a monk and lived in the desert, look how the Christians lived in the book of acts it was monestary communial living.

Regarding Paul, he didnt act alone he was instructed by the diciples and was also with them. It was through apostolic succession that we finally got the full canon of scripture, even decades after Jesus was resurrected people could still write accounts of Jesus they were still first hand eye witnesses of Christ or they could recount the stories to scribes to write it down on their behalf, the important thing is the church was the final authority on the canon of scripture, thats how Christ set it up.

 

[GoodShepherd]

Thank you for the detailed response.

He also writes 'what is usually concealed in the histories of early Christianity is the tensions between different groups.'

'The canon was a deliberate attempt to exclude certain voices from early period of Christianity, heretics, Marcionites, Gnosticism, Jewish Christians.'

....'there were many conflicting interpretations of the status, purpose and relationships between the three divine forces. There was not even a consensus on what salvation meant.'

'It took much longer to complete a canon of early Christian texts as it involved choosing between a large number of competing texts (including the twenty gospels already mentioned) which were selected on the basis of their conformity with the evolution of doctrine'

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The question is, did early Christian thinkers make a decision to create the canon from a selection of some texts over others? And if so, how did they do that and why?

It appears plenty of thinkers have disagreed over what core aspecs of Christianity are since the inception and times immediaely after Jesus' death. Lots of things appear left up to interpretation. Just makes it all very confusing.

The church is supposed to reject heretical books, why should they include them in the canon, gnostics are not Christians they are not part of the church their writings are not part of the scriptures, we must also keep in mind that Christianity existed long before there was an official canon of scripture, the church came first not the other way around.

 

[Lawrence87]

The church is supposed to reject heretical books, why should they include them in the canon, gnostics are not Christians they are not part of the church their writings are not part of the scriptures, we must also keep in mind that Christianity existed long before there was an official canon of scripture, the church came first not the other way around.

Also this idea that there was just this big wrestling match for centuries and Orthodoxy just happened to prevail is an atheistic perspective. Essentially saying that history is an accident. That if the Gnostics had acted differently they might have come out on top.

To a Christian history is not an accident. The reason Orthodoxy prevailed is because it is the true Church of Christ. If you read books from secular sources you're never going to get the full picture because they will leave God out.

 

[Samseau]

Christianity is actual Judaism, since Christ is the King of Jews. The ones who call themselves Jews today but reject the King are but traitors to their own race and God. How can one be a Jew if they reject the King of Jews?

That's why I don't call them Jews, but Talmudic Jews, or chews, or some kind of slang, because this distinction is important to help others avoid confusion.

The ones who call themselves Jews are inherently anti-Christ, since implicit in their name is the idea that Jesus was in fact a traitor to Judaism, and that they are the real Jews, and that the messiah is yet to come.

It's all a big marketing battle, so they try to create their own reality by insisting they are still Jews when in fact they are not.