Thread: Purgatory: The Creed and The Bible Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on
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In AD381 Christianity was defined by the Nicene Creed as a belief in:
• The Trinity
• The Church
• Baptism
• Resurrection
• Life of the World to Come
1,631 years later, Christianity often seems to be defined as belief in the Bible.
If the Bible is so important to the Christian faith, why wasn’t it mentioned in the Creed? Is recourse to the scriptures a new innovation that was added to the faith long after Jesus; was it dropped in the first 400 years and then rediscovered, or was it simply not mentioned in the Creed for some reason?
Forgive my ignorance of my own faith, but I’ve been, for a while now, trying to work out what I believe about this rather odd document we call the Bible, and what it’s reasonable to believe about it.
[ 01. December 2012, 10:54: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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I would be wary of saying the creed "defines Christianity." It defines the essentials of Christian belief, which is not the same thing since [being] a Christian is a good deal more than believing a set of propositions.
[ 04. September 2012, 15:35: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on
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Yes, I agree. The Creeds express the essentials of the Christian faith but they shouldn't be used in a reductionistic way.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
1,631 years later, Christianity often seems to be defined as belief in the Bible.
If the Bible is so important to the Christian faith, why wasn’t it mentioned in the Creed? Is recourse to the scriptures a new innovation that was added to the faith long after Jesus; was it dropped in the first 400 years and then rediscovered, or was it simply not mentioned in the Creed for some reason?
The Marcionite controversy may give you some idea of how the early Church viewed scripture. Marcion's attempt to get rid of vast quantities of it got him the boot.
I suspect that folks would say that "the Church" subsumes the scriptures. I certainly wouldn't assume that there was ever a time when the Church thought that scriptures were unimportant.
--Tom Clune
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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The Creed doesn't mention the Bible because by the time it was written the biblical canon was well established.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
The Creed doesn't mention the Bible because by the time it was written the biblical canon was well established.
I'm not sure that's a sound interpretive principle. The Church was well-established, but that's mentioned.
Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I would be wary of saying the creed "defines Christianity." It defines the essentials of Christian belief, which is not the same thing since [being] a Christian is a good deal more than believing a set of propositions.
Yes, but I'm using the term in the same sense when I say that modern day Christianity is "defined" as belief in the Bible.
Do you think the a belief of some proposition about the status of the Bible is different from a belief in the things listed in the Creed?
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
I'm not sure that's a sound interpretive principle. The Church was well-established, but that's mentioned.
Was it so well established? The Catholic bishops fought tooth and nail to convince the emperor that they and their followers were the Church, and that the Arminians weren't. What seems clear to us today was hanging by a thread. But no one was arguing about the biblical canon that I can think of.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Could we, perhaps, say that the Creed's claim that the Church is apostolic grounds the Church's identity in the Bible?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
I'm not sure that's a sound interpretive principle. The Church was well-established, but that's mentioned.
Was it so well established? The Catholic bishops fought tooth and nail to convince the emperor that they and their followers were the Church, and that the Arminians weren't. What seems clear to us today was hanging by a thread. But no one was arguing about the biblical canon that I can think of.
Nobody was arguing that the church wasn't one, holy, catholic, or apostolic either.
(As an aside: Your point that nobody was arguing the biblical canon in the 4th century is a good one to remember when talking about the Protestants tossing out the deuterocanonicals in the 16th.)
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Could we, perhaps, say that the Creed's claim that the Church is apostolic grounds the Church's identity in the Bible?
Almost. It grounds it in the Apostolic tradition, which includes the Bible as its centerpiece but is not exhausted thereby.
[ 04. September 2012, 15:58: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
Do you think the a belief of some proposition about the status of the Bible is different from a belief in the things listed in the Creed?
Yes. If the NT had never been written, we could still have Christianity. Indeed, we did for many years before it was written. If the early Christians had somehow been suddenly ejected from the empire and nobody remembered to pack their copy of the Old Testament as they fled, we could still have the Church. The Trinity, the Incarnation, the Church, baptism, and bodily resurrection are foundational. The Bible, clearly less so.
[ 04. September 2012, 16:01: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Nobody was arguing that the church wasn't one, holy, catholic, or apostolic either.
Constantine gave every indication that he needed to be convinced, and never quite made a choice between the Catholic faith and the Arminian heresy. He was baptized by an Arminian bishop at the end of his life.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Nobody was arguing that the church wasn't one, holy, catholic, or apostolic either.
Constantine gave every indication that he needed to be convinced, and never quite made a choice between the Catholic faith and the Arminian heresy. He was baptized by an Arminian bishop at the end of his life.
You're conflating two things here. "WE are the church not them," which was claimed by both camps and needed deciding between, and "The Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic," which the two sides did not differ on. They only differed on which one of them was the rightful claimant to be the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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At any rate, a wise professor of Scripture here at Boston College pointed out that Christians are not, as claimed by the Koran, a people of the book. We are the people of a person- Jesus Christ, and the Bible is regarded as the central source of information about that person.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
At any rate, a wise professor of Scripture here at Boston College pointed out that Christians are not, as claimed by the Koran, a people of the book. We are the people of a person- Jesus Christ, and the Bible is regarded as the central source of information about that person.
No argument. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
(As an aside: Your point that nobody was arguing the biblical canon in the 4th century is a good one to remember when talking about the Protestants tossing out the deuterocanonicals in the 16th.)
And that's why the Orthodoxen all have the same canon, as does the RCC. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
--Tom Clune
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
(As an aside: Your point that nobody was arguing the biblical canon in the 4th century is a good one to remember when talking about the Protestants tossing out the deuterocanonicals in the 16th.)
And that's why the Orthodoxen all have the same canon, as does the RCC.
--Tom Clune
Apples and oranges. Minor onesy-twosy discrepancies at the borders versus intentional jettisoning of a largish chunk. And that nobody was arguing about the former potentially indicates it rather didn't much matter. But nobody was arguing about Tobit or Maaccaabbees (I can never spell that) or the execrable Ecclesiasticus.
Posted by sebby (# 15147) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
At any rate, a wise professor of Scripture here at Boston College pointed out that Christians are not, as claimed by the Koran, a people of the book. We are the people of a person- Jesus Christ, and the Bible is regarded as the central source of information about that person.
No argument.
That is a wise assertion against bibliolatry.
Whilst the creeds and scripture compliment each other, it used to be said in catholic circles: 'it is for the Church to teach, and scripture to confirm'.
It is interesting to reflect that for some time there was no written NT canon, and scripture was primarily the Hebrew bible; the notion of what was canonical sometimes varied from community to community in perfectly orthodox Christian groups. The primitive kerygma was the preaching of the resurrection. This is all that seemed necessary to the primitive church, coupled with the changed lives of the believers; one might add the experience of the Risen Christ in the sacraments, life of the church, and lives of individual believers.
Similarly the image that early Christians individually pored over the bible is stretching the truth; one imagines that many believers couldn't read. This is probably also true of 16thC England. That they searched the scriptures in the synagogoes is more likely - and it would have been the rabbinically educated (like St Paul).
Professor Raymond Brown in discussing the tradition v scripture argument, saw scripture as part of the church's tradition, therefore eliminating the dicotomy.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
Professor Raymond Brown in discussing the tradition v scripture argument, saw scripture as part of the church's tradition, therefore eliminating the dicotomy.
This is the historic position of the Orthodox Church.
Posted by coniunx (# 15313) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
At any rate, a wise professor of Scripture here at Boston College pointed out that Christians are not, as claimed by the Koran, a people of the book. We are the people of a person- Jesus Christ, and the Bible is regarded as the central source of information about that person.
I'd be a bit careful about that.
In Christian terms, we're not a 'People of the Book' (though some denominations don't seem to mind that appellation); but to take the Arabic phrase "Ahl al-Kitaab" and say it doesn't apply to you because its literal translation is 'People of the Book', is to misunderstand both the nature of Arabic as a language, and specifically the way in which the phrase is used in the Qu'ran as a term of respect.
Not that I know a lot of Arabic, but I know enough not to base anything on simple translation without further enquiry; and I don't mind Muslims calling by a term which is one of respect for my religion, even if they don't fully understand that religion.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
I'd be a bit careful about that. In Christian terms, we're not a 'People of the Book' (though some denominations don't seem to mind that appellation); but..
So, because it is intended with respect, I can't disagree with it on Christian terms?
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
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I've commented to Muslims in the past that while they think in terms of Allah giving a book each to Jews, Christians and Muslims, the New Testament has more in common with the Hadith than the Qu'ran, as I understand it.
Posted by beachcomber (# 17294) on
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The Church is the ark of salvation and all else follows from this.
(x posted)
[ 04. September 2012, 18:48: Message edited by: beachcomber ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Constantine gave every indication that he needed to be convinced, and never quite made a choice between the Catholic faith and the Arminian heresy. He was baptized by an Arminian bishop at the end of his life.
I think you mean Arian heresy. Being baptised by an Arminian bishop would have been quite an achievement.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
I think you mean Arian heresy. Being baptised by an Arminian bishop would have been quite an achievement.
I think you are right. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Posted by coniunx (# 15313) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
I'd be a bit careful about that. In Christian terms, we're not a 'People of the Book' (though some denominations don't seem to mind that appellation); but..
So, because it is intended with respect, I can't disagree with it on Christian terms?
You can disagree with it on Christian terms, if you wish; but be clear that you are disagreeing with a translation which probably doesn't mean what you suppose it does, and that in doing so you may be upsetting someone who is offering you nothing but respect.
If someone French calls you a cabbage, do you disagree on English terms? Or do you look a little further and understand that the word 'chou' can mean something other than a green vegetable?
And French is far more closely related to English than is Arabic.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by coniunx:
but be clear that you are disagreeing with a translation which probably doesn't mean what you suppose it does, and that in doing so you may be upsetting someone who is offering you nothing but respect.
This seems to be dredging for complexity to me. You don't know what people of the book actually means to an Arabic speaker, but you assume that the translation is misleading, and you don't have any reason to think that Zach disagreeing with that is particularly upsetting to anyone, but you raise the possibility that he might be.
And if Zach was really only using that phrase as a point of departure for his statement of what Christians aren't (which I think he was), then the whole exercise seems to be a paranoia without a cause.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
You can disagree with it on Christian terms, if you wish; but be clear that you are disagreeing with a translation which probably doesn't mean what you suppose it does...
You yourself said you don't actually know that it means anything different from what I've supposed.
Since it was just an example, and the thing about Jesus was the point, consider the matter conceded to you. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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I don't really understand why the creedal document produced at Nicaea in 325 is considered so authoritative and yet other decisions at that council are totally ignored - for example, they apparently decided on a Canon that prohibited kneeling on a Sunday.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I don't really understand why the creedal document produced at Nicaea in 325 is considered so authoritative and yet other decisions at that council are totally ignored - for example, they apparently decided on a Canon that prohibited kneeling on a Sunday.
This is actually practiced, if imperfectly, in the Slavic Orthodox churches.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
This is actually practiced, if imperfectly, in the Slavic Orthodox churches.
OK, let me rephrase: this is not practiced by 99% of the churches that hold the Nicene Creeds as authoritative.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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I don't know about "99%," but some pronouncements of the Church are more binding than others. Not every vote of a council has to be believed and practiced de fide.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I don't really understand why the creedal document produced at Nicaea in 325 is considered so authoritative and yet other decisions at that council are totally ignored - for example, they apparently decided on a Canon that prohibited kneeling on a Sunday.
Haven't I read you arguing elsewhere that it is very straightforward to discern what parts of Jesus' saying are trustworthy moral teachings and what parts are the impositions of others and not to be trusted?
If that is easy, surely it is trivial to extend the approach to a councils rulings?
[ 04. September 2012, 19:30: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Haven't I read you arguing elsewhere that it is very straightforward to discern what parts of Jesus' saying are trustworthy moral teachings and what parts are the impositions of others and not to be trusted?
If that is easy, surely it is trivial to extend the approach to a councils rulings?
Not exactly, I've argued that it is a reasonable and logical position to take Jesus as a moral teacher accepting some bits of the New Testament and rejecting others.
I reject the council in its entirety, I have no problem with the concept of accepting bits of it. But I just find it an odd argument from people that elsewhere insist that other things the council did were unarguably authoritative.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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I don't think many regard the council as infallible in every utterance. I regard the creed as true, but don't regard the council to be infallible.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think many regard the council as infallible in every utterance. I regard the creed as true, but don't regard the council to be infallible.
I'm not sure that anyone does. That's a strawman argument right there.
[ 04. September 2012, 19:39: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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OK, let me set up a church which rejects the Nicene Creed and see how far it gets me in the local churches together group.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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"Infallible" is a rather modern word dragged into Christianity as a reaction to higher criticism. The EO churches accept the "Seven Ecumenical Councils" (in which Nicea and Constantinople, the two that defined the creed, are included) as part of big-T Tradition, and they are (nominally) accepted as binding. How this plays out on the steppes is another question.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
OK, let me set up a church which rejects the Nicene Creed and see how far it gets me in the local churches together group.
What is this in response to? Nobody is saying or even implying that rejecting the Creed is going to endear you to any local ecumenical bodies.
[ 04. September 2012, 19:45: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
OK, let me set up a church which rejects the Nicene Creed and see how far it gets me in the local churches together group.
You're making fallacious arguments in every direction here. Just because the Creed is infallible does not mean every decree of the Council is infallible. Just because the Council was fallible doesn't mean that the Creed is fallible.
Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on
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But why do "we" believe it to be infallible?
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
OK, let me set up a church which rejects the Nicene Creed and see how far it gets me in the local churches together group.
You're making fallacious arguments in every direction here. Just because the Creed is infallible does not mean every decree of the Council is infallible. Just because the Council was fallible doesn't mean that the Creed is fallible.
I suppose I oughtta correct this statement. Not every decree by the Council was a binding article of faith- as MT said, infallibility vs fallibility is sumfin' else altogether.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Just because the Creed is infallible does not mean every decree of the Council is infallible. Just because the Council was fallible doesn't mean that the Creed is fallible.
Why? If one part of it is mad or bad, why isn't the creed also considered mad or bad?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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I regard the creed as true not simply because the council spoke it, but because it is a serious theological statement which accords with so much else in the teachings of the church and in the bible.
Whether one kneels or not seems like a rather minor detail to me.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I regard the creed as true not simply because the council spoke it, but because it is a serious theological statement which accords with so much else in the teachings of the church and in the bible.
Whether one kneels or not seems like a rather minor detail to me.
This seems to me to be exactly what I was saying in the other thread about believing Jesus was a great moral teacher. But anyway, never mind.
[ 04. September 2012, 19:55: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Just because the Creed is infallible does not mean every decree of the Council is infallible. Just because the Council was fallible doesn't mean that the Creed is fallible.
Why? If one part of it is mad or bad, why isn't the creed also considered mad or bad?
The Creed is explicitly a statement of the faith of the Church. The thing about kneeling was simply an agreement to maintain consistent rites across the Church.
Posted by coniunx (# 15313) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by coniunx:
but be clear that you are disagreeing with a translation which probably doesn't mean what you suppose it does, and that in doing so you may be upsetting someone who is offering you nothing but respect.
This seems to be dredging for complexity to me. You don't know what people of the book actually means to an Arabic speaker
Actually, I entered into this point precisely because I do have a fair idea of what that particular Arabic phrase means. I don't know where you got the idea I didn't.
I don't have a lot of Arabic, as I said, but I have learnt some - and the people from whom I learned it were very capable of explaining their culture and how their language worked, as well as how to speak and write some of it. We had quite a discussion after one evening class about phrases with particular meaning in Islam, of which this was one.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
If one part of it is mad or bad, why isn't the creed also considered mad or bad?
It isn't mad or bad, it's just not that important to me whether a council thought I should kneel or not. It seems a rather disputable and unimportant matter to me.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by coniunx:
Actually, I entered into this point precisely because I do have a fair idea of what that particular Arabic phrase means. I don't know where you got the idea I didn't.
a) because you didn't enlighten us with your knowledge of what it actually does mean and b) because you said "Not that I know a lot of Arabic".
I'm not sure why someone would interject to say "you're wrong about x" in many words without bothering to tell us what the answer actually is.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by coniunx:
Actually, I entered into this point precisely because I do have a fair idea of what that particular Arabic phrase means. I don't know where you got the idea I didn't.
FWIW, I got the same idea from your post. On rereading it given your denial, I can see that I misconstrued your intent. But it was quite easy to do, given the wording.
--Tom Clune
Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on
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Fascinating question! I don't know enough about the history involved, so all I can do is focus on the question itself.
It's always interesting to me to read various Protestant (especially Evangelical) "statements of faith," because the points where they go beyond the creed tell you a lot about what's most important to that group's identity (as they distinguish themselves from other Christian churches). Some, for example, get really precise about how they interpret the Cross; others lay emphasis on gifts of the Spirit, etc. Many of them will add something about the Bible, usually a belief in its inerrancy. But usually they're worded in ways that pin down beliefs with much more precision than the Nicene Creed seems willing to do.
But it's true, many of these statements of faith specifically list a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture as part of the group identity. The Nicene Creed doesn't do that.
I think when we're asked to define ourselves - what we believe - as a group, we will naturally focus on what distinguishes us from others who are otherwise similar to us. Hence the modern statements of faith mentioning the inerrancy of Scripture; they're trying to distinguish themselves from other Christians who don't hold that tenet (and who probably wouldn't think to mention what they believe about the Bible in their own statement of faith).
So - what was the range of acceptable beliefs about the Bible within orthodoxy at the time? Was any belief about the Bible something that would distinguish orthodox Christians from heretics around at the time while not excluding any orthodox Christians?
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
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You mean like
quote:
VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.
From the 39 Articles?
Jengie
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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quote:
Originally posted by sebby
Similarly the image that early Christians individually pored over the bible is stretching the truth; one imagines that many believers couldn't read.
But the believers who could read would read aloud. In many churches an entire gospel was read aloud once a year.
(We do that in my church in Holy Week.)
Moo
Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
You mean like
quote:
VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.
From the 39 Articles?
Jengie
Exactly. That's a reactionary statement.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
So - what was the range of acceptable beliefs about the Bible within orthodoxy at the time? Was any belief about the Bible something that would distinguish orthodox Christians from heretics around at the time while not excluding any orthodox Christians?
To answer the second question, both the Arians and the Trinitarians supported their positions from the Bible, so differing understandings of the authority of the Bible weren't an issue and wouldn't have helped.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I don't really understand why the creedal document produced at Nicaea in 325 is considered so authoritative and yet other decisions at that council are totally ignored - for example, they apparently decided on a Canon that prohibited kneeling on a Sunday.
Canons declaring doctrinal statements are one thing, canons giving disciplinary measures are quite another. Not every word of an ecumenical council is supposed to state an eternal truth of faith and morals for the ages. Usually quite a bit of contemporary and practical concerns are thrown into the mix. Generally it is very easy to discern when councils intend to be dogmatic about something. In particular, the presence of anathema is an unmistakable sign.
This is no special pleading, everybody can spot this in text directly. Here's part of the creed and the canon on kneeling, with my emphasis added:
quote:
First Council of Nicća (A.D. 325)
The Ecthesis [statement of faith] of the Synod at Nice.
We believe in one God, ... And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion — all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.
Canon 20
Forasmuch as there are certain persons who kneel on the Lord's Day and in the days of Pentecost, therefore, to the intent that all things may be uniformly observed everywhere (in every parish), it seems good to the holy Synod that prayer be made to God standing.
The difference in wording and intent is obvious, I hope. If you want to squeeze authoritative meaning out of Canon 20, then it is not whether one actually kneels or stands, but rather that there should be uniformity in liturgy. The idea that every parish can just do as they please is contrary to the fundamental intent of the council here. And while there is no threat of anathema, this still should be taken seriously.
(Incidentally, quoting Tertullian as a source is a touchy issue, a bit like quoting Origen. Both are undisputedly highly important early Christian sources. Both also ended up being considered heretics, and at least in Tertullian's case justly so.)
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
If the Bible is so important to the Christian faith, why wasn’t it mentioned in the Creed?
It is.
quote:
We believe in the Holy Spirit...
who has spoken through the prophets.
I don;t thinkl there were any Marcionites around at that time of Nicea, though if there were they could not have honestly said that without mental reservations. (*)
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
Hence the modern statements of faith mentioning the inerrancy of Scripture; they're trying to distinguish themselves from other Christians who don't hold that tenet (and who probably wouldn't think to mention what they believe about the Bible in their own statement of faith).
I think that is exactly the sort of thing tht the Creeds were. The various Creeds and Symbols of the Faith were deliberately written to separate orthodoxy from heterodoxy. They were supposed to be things that a heretic could not in conscience say - that is the heretics they actually had to deal with at the time. They are meant to exclude Arians, Pelagians, monophysites, Nestorians and so on. (Though most people nowadays seem to think that the Nestorians didn't actually believe what the Catholics thought they believed, but that's another matter).
So what was not in dispute might well be skipped over.
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
Similarly the image that early Christians individually pored over the bible is stretching the truth; one imagines that many believers couldn't read. This is probably also true of 16thC England. That they searched the scriptures in the synagogoes is more likely - and it would have been the rabbinically educated (like St Paul).
Well, yes. The earliest Christians were synagogue-member Jews and they did exactly that. And they were also the people who wrote the New Testament.
As for 16th century England:
quote:
If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause that the boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.
And thank God that he did it.
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
You mean like
quote:
VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation..
Exactly. That's a reactionary statement.
No, its a liberating statement, because it frees the Christian from having ever more extreme novel doctrines piled on them and being forced to assent to them. It limits the power of the Established Church over the believer. The 30 Articles were more of a constitution than a creed.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Canons declaring doctrinal statements are one thing, canons giving disciplinary measures are quite another. Not every word of an ecumenical council is supposed to state an eternal truth of faith and morals for the ages.
Yes, exactly.
Though that brings us straight to the question of "adiaphora" and all the Dead Horses.
(*) There probably were some left-over Gnostics of the sort who thought that the Jehovah of the Old Testament was an evil God who created the world as a kind of trap or prison for us, which Jesus was sent to rescue us from by taking us out of the world - that was a form of religion that never quite disappeared and kept on resurfacing throughout the Middle Ages - but they wouldn't have been likely to have been in a Council of Christian bishops anyway. Though if they were they could not have said that line honestly either.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
If the Bible is so important to the Christian faith, why wasn’t it mentioned in the Creed?
It is.
quote:
We believe in the Holy Spirit...
who has spoken through the prophets.
Also, "On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures."
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
In AD381 Christianity was defined by the Nicene Creed as a belief in:
• The Trinity
• The Church
• Baptism
• Resurrection
• Life of the World to Come
1,631 years later, Christianity often seems to be defined as belief in the Bible.
Christianity as "belief in the Bible" seems to me to be a very unconsidered statement. I see it more as a banner than theology.
Similarly for 'people of the book'. I would have hoped that the 'wise' professor in Boston would have recognised that this phrase just states a commonality between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam rather than it being a precise definition. It doesn't take academic scholarship to see differences and similarities in them!
And I agree with Ken and others that understand that Creeds were developed, not as an all encompassing definition, but as lines to be drawn against other contemporary understanding of Christianity.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Also, "On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures."
I have often wondered about that phrase - presumably they don't mean the New Testament - which might not yet have been widely accepted or necessarily recognised as scripture at this stage, no?
Are they pointing to Jonah?
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
You mean like
quote:
VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.
From the 39 Articles?
Jengie
Exactly. That's a reactionary statement.
Well it is your denominations one.
Jengie
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
You mean like
quote:
VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.
From the 39 Articles?
Jengie
Exactly. That's a reactionary statement.
Well it is your denominations one.
Jengie
I know 'reactionary' often means something like 'un-progressive' or 'unthinkingly bigoted', but I think churchgeek is using it with a different meaning, i.e. Article 6 is reacting against other views that were prevalent at the time - more precisely, late medieval doctrines that were imposed by church authority, but which could not be supported from scripture.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
If the Bible is so important to the Christian faith, why wasn’t it mentioned in the Creed? Is recourse to the scriptures a new innovation that was added to the faith long after Jesus; was it dropped in the first 400 years and then rediscovered, or was it simply not mentioned in the Creed for some reason?
I have not read the whole thread. Forgive me if I'm covering old ground.
The bible was not mentioned in the Creed because it was the foundation of those things you listed above. It was a given. Unnecessary to be mentioned.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I have not read the whole thread. Forgive me if I'm covering old ground.
The bible was not mentioned in the Creed because it was the foundation of those things you listed above. It was a given. Unnecessary to be mentioned.
Given that we're talking about the council of Nicaea from 325 and the first list we have of the New Testament books which are as we have them today is from 367. Otherwise you're relying on Origen, who a) was a heretic and b) considered the Shepherd of Hermas as being authoritative.
Apparently the council of Niceae may have had some role in discussing the biblical canon, but (also apparently) there is no record of their conclusions. Jerome is said to claim that the council counted the Book of Judith as authoritative.
I'd say that it wasn't mentioned because the bible as we understand it did not exist.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Also, "On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures."
I have often wondered about that phrase - presumably they don't mean the New Testament - which might not yet have been widely accepted or necessarily recognised as scripture at this stage, no?
Are they pointing to Jonah?
At the very least. That is certainly considered a clear foreshadowing of the "3 days" part. Jesus so uses it himself in the gospels (or at least one of them; I'm too lazy to go look it up). The Book of Jonah is read in its entirety in the Orthodox Church on Holy Thursday for that very reason.
The Fathers thought that everything in the OT pointed to Christ. Some went so far as to deny the historicity, or the importance of the historicity, of the OT in comparison with the importance of it as a vehicle of prophecy of the coming of Christ.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The bible was not mentioned in the Creed because it was the foundation of those things you listed above. It was a given. Unnecessary to be mentioned.
Given that we're talking about the council of Nicaea from 325 and the first list we have of the New Testament books which are as we have them today is from 367. Otherwise you're relying on Origen, who a) was a heretic and b) considered the Shepherd of Hermas as being authoritative.
Apparently the council of Niceae may have had some role in discussing the biblical canon, but (also apparently) there is no record of their conclusions. Jerome is said to claim that the council counted the Book of Judith as authoritative.
I'd say that it wasn't mentioned because the bible as we understand it did not exist.
The "Bible as we know it" did not exist because there wasn't church-wide "official" agreement on which books were in it. But that is irrelevant to what Evensong has said.
And it does not mean that it wasn't used, and used much as it is used today, by the theologians and pastors of the day. Also I believe there was considerable overlap as to which books were used, so that when lists were compiled they were pretty darned similar.
So the lack of a definitive ruling as to contents of the canon is irrelevant to the question of why it wasn't mentioned in the creed.
[ 05. September 2012, 17:29: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
So the lack of a definitive ruling as to contents of the canon is irrelevant to the question of why it wasn't mentioned in the creed.
I don't think it is. In our age we consider the New Testament to be scripture on the same level as the Old Testament - but in the early centuries of the Christian era there were books floating around, but it is not accurate to claim that they were a) all accepted b) considered authoritative or c) considered scripture. In fact, there are hints within the epistles themselves about what the writers considered to be (or not to be) scripture as we might understand it today.
Jesus Christ was acknowledged as being the Word of God, all the books and letters were just books and letters (albeit very important ones).
[ 05. September 2012, 17:39: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
That all may well be true but it doesn't counter what I said. None of that provides a reason why the Bible should have been mentioned in the creeds. You have failed to show (or even attempt to show) any link between the two.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
Also regarding the books that were considered authoritative, there were certainly indications of overlap but considerable diversity of others included. Which is a problem, because books like the dreaded Shepherd and that one called The Acts of Paul and Thecia have some pretty well, unorthodox, theology.
The Shepherd and Thecia are fun, but weird.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
That all may well be true but it doesn't counter what I said. None of that provides a reason why the Bible should have been mentioned in the creeds. You have failed to show (or even attempt to show) any link between the two.
Um, I have, I've said it (the New Testament) is not mentioned in the creeds because it didn't exist.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The bible was not mentioned in the Creed because it was the foundation of those things you listed above. It was a given. Unnecessary to be mentioned.
I don't think tjha's right.
The bible, such as it was then, was not the be all and end all that modern evangelicals and fundamentalists make it. it was a non issue.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Um, I have, I've said it (the New Testament) is not mentioned in the creeds because it didn't exist.
It certainly did exist by the 4th century. Probably by the end of the 2nd. Well before the creeds.
There was very little argument remaining about what NT books were canonical at the time of the Councils. Revelation, and maybe Jude/2 Peter, but that's about it. A little bit earlier there might have been some doubt about Hebrews, and some might have wanted to count Clement, Hermas & Barnabas as canonical but that was well over by Nicea.
The core texts of the NT - the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul & John - were certainly accepted by almost all churches sometime in the 2nd century, quite likely before the end of the 1st.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
The creeds were developed for specific purposes. IIRC the Apostles' Creed was very likely a baptismal confession, so you'd expect something relatively small and memorizable, and not in any way "all inclusive." The Nicene Creed was developed in the crucible of major church conflict, and naturally focuses its attention on the then-critical issues (while trying to stay at a recite-able size). The Athanasian Creed is also "fighting words," but already so long it's a bear to recite very often. And then we start getting huge monster-long things like the various confessions and symbols and catechisms.
Since the Bible really didn't become a hugely controversial issue across the whole Christian church until the last 100 years or so, you wouldn't expect to see it covered in recite-able creeds until after that point. By which time historically we had gotten well and truly carried away with the printing press and our newfound ability to generate reams and reams and REAMS of wordy doctrinal statements, 99% of which are guaranteed to send you straight to sleep.
Pity. I'd have liked to see a new Church-wide creed.
I'm sort of wondering--if the Lord delays his coming another 500 years or so, how long are our doctrinal statements going to be THEN? We may bury the world in our words before we convert it.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
In AD381 Christianity was defined by the Nicene Creed as a belief in:
• The Trinity
• The Church
• Baptism
• Resurrection
• Life of the World to Come
1,631 years later, Christianity often seems to be defined as belief in the Bible.
If the Bible is so important to the Christian faith, why wasn’t it mentioned in the Creed?
It is mentioned: "the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures". "According to" means "in accord with", or as predicted. Thus it is probably referring to the "Old Testament" so you might regard this as an unsatisfactory reply.
But why take a latter-day premise, no matter how widely assumed now, and use it to question the completeness of an ancient statement? Such a practice is called anachronism and is at least vaguely fallacious. Wouldn't it be more enlightening to put it the other way around and ask why, if the Nicene Creed didn't mention a "belief in" Bible, this belief has become a (or even the) sine qua non today? The burden of proof to defend a revision should rest on the revisionists.
And that, it seems to me, is one of the main reasons to continue reciting the Nicene Creed.
[ 06. September 2012, 00:33: Message edited by: Alogon ]
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
But why take a latter-day premise, no matter how widely assumed now, and use it to question the completeness of an ancient statement? Such a practice is called anachronism and is at least vaguely fallacious.
No it isn't. It's totally fallacious, intellectual dishonesty, a very bad, serious and far too prevalent error.
There is more than one thread running on the Ship at the moment where part of an argument is premised on this very abuse.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
It certainly did exist by the 4th century. Probably by the end of the 2nd. Well before the creeds.
There was very little argument remaining about what NT books were canonical at the time of the Councils. Revelation, and maybe Jude/2 Peter, but that's about it. A little bit earlier there might have been some doubt about Hebrews, and some might have wanted to count Clement, Hermas & Barnabas as canonical but that was well over by Nicea.
Not sure where you are getting this from, ken, but it is total rubbish. Which books are you reading?
quote:
The core texts of the NT - the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul & John - were certainly accepted by almost all churches sometime in the 2nd century, quite likely before the end of the 1st.
That depends what you mean by 'core'. Also the implication that 4 exclusive gospels were held by the churches early on it also rubbish. There were a who load of gospels floating around, including gnostic and 'hebrew' gospels - which some scholars believe were the basis for the gospels we have today.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
The creeds are what we believe. The Bible is where the bases for those beliefs is set out. Nothing more, nothing less.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
The Long Ranger wrote quote:
There were a who load of gospels floating around, including gnostic and 'hebrew' gospels - which some scholars believe were the basis for the gospels we have today.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Which ones were they? The only one I have heard that sort of argument about is Thomas, and that is largely as a consequence of the Q theory - which would require a separate "sayings" source.
Thomas is a sayings source (not really a gospel at all), though the version we have is from clearly gnostic sources. There is speculation that there may have been an original non-gnostic collection of sayings which has been heavily edited and amended. Or so the theory goes. Frankly I find it speculative in the extreme.
What other ones are given some sort of credence?
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
Early Christian Writings
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
But that's just a list of all sorts of stuff - apologetics, pseudepigrapha etc. I'm interested in your claim that certain of these were the sources of our canonical gospels.
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
:
Pace both sebby and ken, most Christians up to about 1500 didn't read the Scriptures, but the reason they didn't wasn't that they were illiterate, it was that a copy even of a single gospel was very expensive. Big churches and monasteries would probably have a whole Bible; most churches would have a lectionary; rich individuals a gospel book or a prayer book which would include some psalms and a few nibbles from other bits of the Bible.
Instead, they heard the Scriptures read to them. If they were lucky enough to have the Scriptures read in a language they understood, they would have committed the texts to memory. If not, then they may, outisde the liturgy, have heard versions of Bible stories told as story, out of context (much as in some children's Sunday schools today).
I'm quite happy to subscribe to a faith that says "everything you need can be found in the Bible"*; what I don't like about modern doctrinal statements is that they've gone over to saying "you need everything that's in the Bible" - which, of course, is quite different.
* Footnote: "if you look hard enough and do a lot of what we euphemistically call 'interpretation'"
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
Just because extra-canonical writings existed doesn't mean they were held to be canonical, Long Ranger. St Athanasius didn't just make his list up in 367, though I know that would be terribly convenient for your argument.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The bible was not mentioned in the Creed because it was the foundation of those things you listed above. It was a given. Unnecessary to be mentioned.
I don't think tjha's right.
The bible, such as it was then, was not the be all and end all that modern evangelicals and fundamentalists make it. it was a non issue.
I certainly agree that attitudes towards the scriptures are not the same in the early church as they are now amongst modern fundamentalists.
My point was the same as Gee D's .
The creeds were formulated from the scriptures.
No scriptures - no creeds.
The council of Chalcedon has to be the most poignant example because it defies all reason and all previous historical tradition.
Fully God, fully man? What a friggin joke!
The only way you're going to get that is extensive reflection on the scriptures.
As to the state of the scriptures in the early church long ranger, what ken said. My learning accords with his.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Just because extra-canonical writings existed doesn't mean they were held to be canonical, Long Ranger. St Athanasius didn't just make his list up in 367, though I know that would be terribly convenient for your argument.
Of course, those same "extra-Canonicals" were bound into the earliest Bibles that we have, which strikes me as terribly inconvenient for your argument...
--Tom Clune
Posted by sebby (# 15147) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
Similarly the image that early Christians individually pored over the bible is stretching the truth; one imagines that many believers couldn't read. This is probably also true of 16thC England. That they searched the scriptures in the synagogoes is more likely - and it would have been the rabbinically educated (like St Paul).
Well, yes. The earliest Christians were synagogue-member Jews and they did exactly that. And they were also the people who wrote the New Testament.
Some of them. And not just them. That is over simplistic if one was to consider the Johannine school.
Similarly, there is much in the NT that would appear to spring from liturgy and homilies - not least the passion narratives and John 6.
And to the shipmate that mentioned the reading of the scriptures aloud - that certainly happened in some places. But what was scripture varied; as did liturgical practice and context. Plurality was the order of the day.
As for 16th century England:
quote:
If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause that the boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.
And thank God that he did it.
[/QB][/QUOTE]
Literacy was not a given. God might have granted knowledge of the scriptures, but that is different from granting the ability of each Christian to read the scriptures.
Posted by sebby (# 15147) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Um, I have, I've said it (the New Testament) is not mentioned in the creeds because it didn't exist.
It certainly did exist by the 4th century. Probably by the end of the 2nd. Well before the creeds.
There was very little argument remaining about what NT books were canonical at the time of the Councils. Revelation, and maybe Jude/2 Peter, but that's about it. A little bit earlier there might have been some doubt about Hebrews, and some might have wanted to count Clement, Hermas & Barnabas as canonical but that was well over by Nicea.
The core texts of the NT - the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul & John - were certainly accepted by almost all churches sometime in the 2nd century, quite likely before the end of the 1st.
That is an conservative estimate. It assumes that the Johannine literature in its entireity was written before AD100. It may have been, but opinions differ.
There were certainly NTs which included Clement.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
@Honest Ron - the list illustrates my point - namely that there were various gospels and epistles floating around the early church and that there was no early agreement on the four gospels.
I do not have time to write you an essay regarding which authority used which books in their list and who regarded what as scripture at which time. Clement used books he called 'the words of Jesus' but did not regard them as scripture. Marcion created the first canon, but included non-canonical gospels and is regarded as a heretic. Justin Martyr quoted from a few books in the New Testament and others that are not. Origen accepted 22 books including 4 gospels in the New Testament, but he was also a heretic.
Other people used other books at various times. There was no widespread acceptance of which books were in the canon nor whether they were scripture until after the Council of Nicaea. Some books were in dispute until the times of Martin Luther.
Even the heretical and gnostic gospels were included in many of the early codex containing the canonical books, this is how we know about them. Others are mentioned in letters condemning their use - which implies that they a) were known about and b) were in wide use.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
Of course, those same "extra-Canonicals" were bound into the earliest Bibles that we have, which strikes me as terribly inconvenient for your argument...
Not really, since I never argued that the Bible was handed down in its present form by the Apostles.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
I do not have time to write you an essay...
So instead you'll just repeat the same fallacious arguments.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
I do not have time to write you an essay...
So instead you'll just repeat the same fallacious arguments.
Yeah, fallacious. Of course they are, Zach. Show me the book you've written that proves this all wrong.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
I do not have time to write you an essay...
So instead you'll just repeat the same fallacious arguments.
Yeah, fallacious. Of course they are, Zach. Show me the book you've written that proves this all wrong.
Because only people who have written books know what they're talking about.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
No, Mousethief, but only those who have taken the time to research ancient codexes and texts are really qualified to say whether or not certain figures accepted ancient Christian narratives.
I can't read ancient Greek, Aramaic or the other languages this stuff is written in. But then I doubt whether you or Zach can either.
Hence either we engage with the writings and translations that knowledgeable people have produced on the subject or we are content with ignorantly talking out of our behinds.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Of course, those same "extra-Canonicals" were bound into the earliest Bibles that we have, which strikes me as terribly inconvenient for your argument...
Not really, since I never argued that the Bible was handed down in its present form by the Apostles.
No, you just asserted that they were recognized as extra-canonical. But ISTM that, before there was an authoritaative list of the canon, the closest thing to the notion of a canon would be the actual content of the Bibles that were created, especially given how expensive and labor-intensive book creation was att that time.
If you refuse to recognize that rather obvious point, perhaps you would prefer to contend with the rather inconvenient fact that the lists that were produced before Athanasius also contained "extra-canonical" books as being part of scripture.
--Tom Clune
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
If you refuse to recognize that rather obvious point...
I think the rather obvious point is that "There were extra-canonical books" is entirely consistent with "By the time of the Council of Nicaea the Church had settled on basically the same Canon recognized today."
Like I said- St Athanasius didn't just make up the canon we use to day. He got it from somewhere- the canon that Church actually used. Irenaeus cited the four gospels we use today in 160, despite the Long Ranger's tantrums about the Gospel of Thomas.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
What evidence do you have that the canon had been decided by 325? Just repeatedly stating it does not make it true.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
One, Athanasius didn't just make up his canon. Irenaeus came up with a list much like (though not exactly like) the present list in 160.
Two, we do not need to settle on a very neat list anyway, because that would be to misunderstand the development of the canon altogether, and the use of the Bible in the Church. The Bible was not handed down by the Apostles in its present form, and no one is pretending otherwise. The concern of the early Church was not the Bible, but the teachings of the Apostles, and writings were only used if they were believed to contain these teachings and were consistent with them.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Of course, those same "extra-Canonicals" were bound into the earliest Bibles that we have, which strikes me as terribly inconvenient for your argument...
The extra-canonicals which were bound into the earliest Bibles we have - the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache - are different extra-canonicals from the ones that Zach82 and the long ranger were talking about - the so-called gnostic gospels.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
@Zach - right, so we're agreed that at Niceae there was no agreed Canon. Good.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
The Gospel of Thomas had been out for a long time by the time the Council of Nicaea rolled around.
No one was particularly motivated to kick out other extra-canonicals because, even though their origins were a matter for debate, they remained consistent with the teachings of the Apostles as the Church understood them. Even when the Shepherd of Hermas was taken out of the Canon, it was still commended to the faithful as edifying reading.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The extra-canonicals which were bound into the earliest Bibles we have - the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache - are different extra-canonicals from the ones that Zach82 and the long ranger were talking about - the so-called gnostic gospels.
Actually I think I was talking about that bloody Shepherd book. In fact I think you'll find I was the one who brought it up.
Gnostic is an elastic term, but some of the early gospels which are found with the canonical books have some aspects of gnostic thought.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
@Zach - right, so we're agreed that at Niceae there was no agreed Canon. Good.
SIGH.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The extra-canonicals which were bound into the earliest Bibles we have - the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache - are different extra-canonicals from the ones that Zach82 and the long ranger were talking about - the so-called gnostic gospels.
No, the Shepherd was explicitly mentioned at the start by long ranger, and the Didache is not included in the extant Bibles AFAIK. It was found in an old Orthodox library at the end of the 19th century if memory serves. We knew that there was such a thing from other writings, but had no copy until then. AIUI, there was considerable controversy as to whether it was a hoax or not for the first few decades after it was found. FWIW.
--Tom Clune
[ 06. September 2012, 16:04: Message edited by: tclune ]
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
No it isn't. It's totally fallacious, intellectual dishonesty, a very bad, serious and far too prevalent error.
I'd clap my hands enthusiastically and go if there were a clear, agreed-upon definition of anachronism as a fallacy, but I couldn't find one. The concept seems to be a sort of cloud. Perhaps what we have here is the variety specifically called presentism.
Even in a conservative mode, one would come to grief by doubting the possibility or existence of defensible revisions. Perhaps you have read The Changing Nature of Man (original title: Metabletica) by Jan Hendrik Van den Berg. I haven't noticed much discussion of this book during its fifty years of existence considering the astonishing claims that the author makes. It is quite obvious today, for instance, that the heart beats. We can feel our own hearts beating. But he claimed (in a lecture if not the book itself) that prior to William Harvey's book about the circulatory system in the seventeenth century, the heartbeat had gone unobserved and was unknown. He also pointed to various evidence (together with lack of contemporaneous discussion) to hypothesize that prior to the nineteenth century, adolescense barely existed-- it was noted at most as a brief period of rebellion and confusion.
In cases like this, wouldn't it be silly to question the truth of what we know or can observe so easily today? The question that comes to mind is either "How could mankind have been so ignorant for so long?" (in the first case) or "How could human development and behavior have been so different a few hundred years ago" (in the second); or simply "Can we believe Van den Berg, or was he a nut?"
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Actually I think I was talking about that bloody Shepherd book. In fact I think you'll find I was the one who brought it up.
My bad. I had thought that the discussion had moved on.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
Alogon, that's very interesting, but I'm not sure where it gets us or what that is saying.
I have to admit that I've never heard of Jan Hendrik Van den Berg and have no idea whether prior to the mid C17, nobody had noticed that hearts beat. It would be very surprising if they really hadn't. I suspect though that adolescence wasn't really that recognised as a state until after about 1950.
If that is the case, though, the following (at least) follow:-
1. We can't expect thinkers, writers etc writing before then to have 'dealt with' adolescence as we now see it.
2. We can't blame them for not having done so.
3. We may therefore have to work it out for ourselves, using the resources God has given us.
4. If past generations could manage perfectly well without a concept of 'adolescence', it might not be as necessary or matter as much as we think.
As an example of this sort of thing, I have a prayer book dating from the late eighteenth century. It has bound into it a book called 'A Companion to the Altar'. This was a well known work at the time and was a manual for communicants. Remember, it was written several generations before the Oxford Movement had been thought of. It just is not bothered about defining where it stood or the Christian should stand, on issues that every similar work after the mid-nineteenth century would have felt it needed to take a position on and persuade its readers to accept.
It looks as though in the C4-5, exactly how people understood the status of scripture, wasn't a big point of debate and conflict, the way relationship of the members of the Trinity to each other was.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
Indeed. Van den Berg was born almost one hundred years ago but is still alive. He is widely respected among psychotherapists. One commentator opined that this book, especially, (he wrote at least three others along the same lines) is so important and full of various subtle insights that anyone would do well to reread it every three months. Google reports that he has been discussed by other academics and professionals in that field, who by now appear to take his thinking in stride. It is influenced by existentialism and phenomenology. And he is concerned about some modern developments because they are conducive to neurosis and other mental illness. But it hasn't come to the attention of a wider public. It seems to me that anyone acquainted with his thought would be particularly on guard against the errors of historical anachronism or chronological snobbery. But he's a sizeable hurdle to jump.
[ 06. September 2012, 21:24: Message edited by: Alogon ]
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
But he claimed (in a lecture if not the book itself) that prior to William Harvey's book about the circulatory system in the seventeenth century, the heartbeat had gone unobserved and was unknown.
Aristotle (or perhaps even earlier authors of the Peripatetic school, if this work is falsely attributed to him) discusses the pulsations of the heart in On Breath in the 4th century BC (Nair, 2007). Claudius Galen showed in the 2nd century AD that an excised heart would keep on beating for a while (Silverman et al. 2006). Avicenna discussed the expansion and contraction of the heart in the 11th century AD (Findlen & Bence, accessed 2012). In the 1580s Galileo Galilei invented the "pulsilogia", a way of measuring the heartbeat against the swing of a pendulum. (Nowadays mostly remembered for the discovery of physical properties of the pendulum, this was a hit with the medical doctors of the time, who needed no convincing that keeping track of the pulse was important for patient care... Didn't find a good link for that one on the quick.)
All this (and much more) happened long before Harvey in the middle of the 17th century AD, of course. Blood circulation was discovered by Harvey. The heartbeat I expect was discovered by whoever was the first sapient parent holding a newborn. That's 50,000 BC. At the very latest...
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Not sure where you are getting this from, ken, but it is total rubbish. Which books are you reading?
Dozens, possibly hundreds of them. So what? Are we having a reading contest?
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
The core texts of the NT - the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul & John - were certainly accepted by almost all churches sometime in the 2nd century, quite likely before the end of the 1st.
That depends what you mean by 'core'.
Of course. Which might be why I described what I mean by "core" in the sentence you quoted. Did you actually read it, or just cut and paste it?
quote:
Also the implication that 4 exclusive gospels were held by the churches early on it also rubbish. There were a who load of gospels floating around, including gnostic and 'hebrew' gospels - which some scholars believe were the basis for the gospels we have today.
No, its not rubbish. As others have pointed out here the arguments about canonicity weren't mostly about the gospels. They were about Hermas, Clement, Barnabas and so on (eventually left out) and about Revelation, maybe Hebrews, and a few minor epistles that were kept in.
The idea that there are four gospels seems to be very early. It is a done deal by the time of Irenaus, and his four gospels are the same four we have now. The few quotes we have from earlier writers strongly imply that they too had the same four gospels.
Some or other of the non-canonical gospels may have been popular in various times and places but they were never accepted as apostolic by mainstream churches. Not even close. Marcion and a few others may have rejected some of the canonical books, but others didn't. Saying that the four gospels and some (not all) of the other NT writings were "certainly accepted by almost all churches sometime in the 2nd century, quite likely before the end of the 1st" is a simple statement of fact.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
posted by ken
Saying that the four gospels and some (not all) of the other NT writings were "certainly accepted by almost all churches sometime in the 2nd century, quite likely before the end of the 1st" is a simple statement of fact.
Given that you've just asserted this and provided no evidence other than your claim to have read hundreds of books on the subject, I don't really accept that this is evidence of anything.
[ 07. September 2012, 06:48: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
It is quite obvious today, for instance, that the heart beats. We can feel our own hearts beating. But he claimed (in a lecture if not the book itself) that prior to William Harvey's book about the circulatory system in the seventeenth century, the heartbeat had gone unobserved and was unknown...."Can we believe Van den Berg, or was he a nut?"
He's a nut. It's like saying that until Newton described the theory of gravity, nobody knew that apples fell to the ground when you dropped them.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Early Christian Writings
That link's a bit disingenuous. Some of those early writings are conjectural, and in some cases calling them conjectural is overstating the evidence we have for their existence. Note also that they're listed in order of earliest possible appearance rather than latest possible appearance. So the Gospel of Thomas, estimated by the site at anywhere from 50AD to 140 AD, is listed before Mark estimated from 65AD to 80AD. There's at least a two-thirds probability Thomas is after the latest possible date for Mark, yet the site gives the impression that Thomas is earlier.
Passion narrative: the existence of a written passion narrative as a separate document is highly conjectural.
Lost Sayings Gospel Q: Q is the most likely explanation of the fact that Matthew and Luke share material not in Mark. But even so we can't take its existence as certain. And describing it as a Sayings Gospel, or even as a Gospel as if we know anything else about it, is going a bit too far.
Signs Gospel: calling this conjectural is polite.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
@Dafyd, I agree some of those documents are conjecture. And a fair few are referred to by others as being heretical.
But still, I believe it is evidence that there were a variety of sources and gospels floating around. According to Attridge, the term gospel originated with Marcion who was trying to remove references from the oral traditions and to elevate a Christian narrative above that which the church held to be scripture (ie the Old Testament).
It seems to me to be highly ironic that the modern canon is largely formed after those considered heretics.
Either way, the notion of a gospel and the New Testament as scripture did not exist at first. So to suggest that the four canonical gospels were recognised from the earliest times is not the case. I'd be very interested to see any reference to a scholarly argument that the four gospels were widely considered to be elevated above all the other accounts before Nicaea because I haven't seen anyone who argues that.
The best I've seen is that Ignatius held four gospels, but later writers did not and there is confusion about how much influence he actually had on the wider church.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
Sorry, I missed out the word Jewish - Marcion was trying to minimise the Jewish-ness of the Jesus accounts.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Is this an academic point for you, Long Ranger, or do you have the misguided idea that this somehow feeds into your anti-catholic beliefs?
[ 07. September 2012, 12:03: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
Hahaha, anti-catholic. Zach, if I am anti-anything it is anti-Baptist. I simply don't care very much about Catholics or Orthodox. But y'know if you keep looking you might find phrases in what I say to prop up your persecution complex.
Is it academic? I think it is interesting and that it has implications as to what I believe, how I talk about things and so on.. and that there is a reasonable and researched dossier of information on the subject.
You might think it is totally irrelevant, which is your right, but don't fuck up the varnish on your way off this thread.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
You might as well know that lower-case-catholic does not usually mean Roman Catholic hereabouts.
Oh well, your aren't as subtle about your motivations as you imagine, so they will become obvious enough sooner or later.
Now, just repeat your same poor arguments again. When people do present evidence (as everyone but you has) just ignore it because they haven't written books.
[ 07. September 2012, 12:18: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
Ah ok. Yes then, I am totally anti-catholic. I also don't much like watermelons.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
Oh. Really. Everyone has presented evidence.
No actually nobody has. Everyone has made assertions (including me) without making any reference to where they get them from.
So, y'know, fuck off and try getting an argument. If you have any shred of evidence to back up all of the shit you've been coming out with, I'd be very interested to hear it. None of it resembles anything I've ever read.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
...I'd be very interested to hear it. None of it resembles anything I've ever read.
See, the one thing you don't seem to have read is this thread. Multiple people have given arguments against your views and cited evidence, only to have you ignore the arguments and repeat that there is no evidence.
Heck, I'd settle for you just accepting that some people here might be as or better informed than you, but if wishes were fishes...
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
Nope, no evidence at all. ken and others just made assertions and have not provided sources for their claims. Again, it'd be really interesting if they did.
I think you, Zach, possibly need to go away and first understand what is meant by the term evidence before entering this discussion, because clearly you've no idea.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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Clearly nobody has any idea but you.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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Zach, if you have any sources which suggest that your understanding is supported by scholars, then please show them. If not, please fuck off.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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In the graduate school I go to, primary sources are considered more authoritative than secondary ones. We've given you primary sources, which you seem altogether blind to. Your position that only secondary scholarship counts as evidence is peculiar to say the least.
I'll tell you what- I work in a theological library. I'll find you a secondary source during my lunch break. Though I'm laying odds that secondary sources that disagree with you won't count as evidence either.
[ 07. September 2012, 13:09: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
So someone on this thread has referred to a primary source which determines that the canon (or even the four gospels) were widely accepted before the Council of Nicaea in 325. I think you need your eyes examined, because nobody has.
In fact, I think I am the only one who has linked to a collection of (admittedly translations) of primary sources.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
While you're at it, Zach, can you find some examples in early post-Reformation prayer or liturgical books of the word "Catholic" being printed with a lower-case C in the Nicene Creed? Last Christmas, while the rector was showing me some of the old Anglican prayer books he collects, we checked several, and it was always upper case. I've just about concluded that trying to make a distinction on this basis is a precious red herring that someone concocted, and have abandoned putting it in lower-case as an adjective for the church. If the word has nothing to do with religion, like "he has catholic tastes in music" only then.
[ 07. September 2012, 13:29: Message edited by: Alogon ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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This is the place to have out that argument, Alogon?
Posted by sebby (# 15147) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
posted by ken
Saying that the four gospels and some (not all) of the other NT writings were "certainly accepted by almost all churches sometime in the 2nd century, quite likely before the end of the 1st" is a simple statement of fact.
Given that you've just asserted this and provided no evidence other than your claim to have read hundreds of books on the subject, I don't really accept that this is evidence of anything.
Much good argument here in the to-ing and fro-ing, but a phrase such a 'a simple statement of fact' is unhelpful, especially when it may well be wishful thinking rather than fact.
Again, not all are convinced that the Johannine literature - including the Fourth Gospel with its distinct flavour and Christology - was complete by AD100. Parts may well have been earlier, and the writers may have been privy to an earlier source (argued by Robinson in 'The Priority of John') but scholars have argued for a later date (amongst them Von Rad). Therefore this highly significant part of the NT (as it is known today) can hardly have been in a canon if it hadn't been redacted or even written. Therefore such an early notion for the date of anything like a fixed or accepted canon is likely to be incorrect.
In terms of AD100, to take a round date, the notion of 'canon' is an anachronism. Plurality and fluidity were the order of the day based largely on geographical and other concerns. .
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
@Dafyd, I agree some of those documents are conjecture. And a fair few are referred to by others as being heretical.
But still, I believe it is evidence that there were a variety of sources and gospels floating around.
It would be a bad argument to dismiss some of the documents on the grounds that they were considered heretical by the post-Nicene consensus.
However, without any evidence of distribution your argument only shows that the documents existed. (And not even that in some cases.) It doesn't show how widely they were accepted. We can guess from the fact that three copies of the Gospel of Thomas were found in an Alexandrian rubbish dump that it was almost as popular as Matthew and John (which have similar representation from that period), but we can't tell anything about the wider distribution.
quote:
The best I've seen is that Ignatius held four gospels, but later writers did not and there is confusion about how much influence he actually had on the wider church.
You mean Irenaeus, I think.
You haven't actually shown that later writers didn't believe in four gospels. If you're going to complain that other people aren't substantiating their statements, it behoves you to cite yours. I think it's fair to say that no accounts have survived in which ancient authorities give lists of gospels which accept gospels other than the four.
Since we're looking for sources I think the Oxford Bible Commentary, 2000, Introduction to the New Testament by Leslie Houlden counts as reasonably authoritative:
quote:
the end of the second century saw the acceptance in a number of major Christian centres (e.g. Rome, Alexandria) of something close to the present collection (four gospels, Acts, Paul's and other letters); but it was four centuries before most churches accepted more or less the set of writings that have remained to this day as those authorised for official use
Which is what ken said: the core, four Gospels and Paul from pretty early on, with tinkering around the edges (Revelation, Hermas, Barnabas) going on for another couple of centuries.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
You mean Irenaeus, I think.
You haven't actually shown that later writers didn't believe in four gospels. If you're going to complain that other people aren't substantiating their statements, it behoves you to cite yours. I think it's fair to say that no accounts have survived in which ancient authorities give lists of gospels which accept gospels other than the four.
Yep, fair enough.
I might quote from a book I've been reading, but for now here is a quote from Elizabeth Clerk at Duke University
quote:
In the second and third century we know now there were any number of gospels which had names of apostles appended to them. There were also acts or also with names of apostles appended to them so you have The Acts of Paul, The Acts of Thomas and so forth. ... these circulated quite freely in the church and Christians for a while probably used these ... somewhat indiscriminately; it's only a little bit later ... you begin to have people objecting, "don't use this one, don't use that one". ..
I'm interested to do some more reading about how these academics know this, but it seems to be a well accepted view.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I'm interested to do some more reading about how these academics know this, but it seems to be a well accepted view.
The wikipedia article for the Gospel of Peter
here tells a story of how Serapion, bishop of Antioch at the end of the second century, investigated a 'gospel of Peter' because the church at Rhossus were using it, and condemned the gospel as a result. That suggests that the document in question was not widely circulated, and secondly is evidence for attempts to police a canon.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
In the second and third century we know now there were any number of gospels which had names of apostles appended to them. There were also acts or also with names of apostles appended to them so you have The Acts of Paul, The Acts of Thomas and so forth. ... these circulated quite freely in the church and Christians for a while probably used these ... somewhat indiscriminately; it's only a little bit later ... you begin to have people objecting, "don't use this one, don't use that one". ..
So that's basically what everyone had already admitted. And where did she say that the canon hadn't become more settled in the fourth century?
[ 07. September 2012, 19:14: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
So that's basically what everyone had already admitted. And where did she say that the canon hadn't become more settled in the fourth century?
Not quite - the position being argued is that there was such a thing as New Testament scripture by Nicaea in 325 which was so widely accepted that it didn't even need mentioning. Moreover some have argued in this thread that not only had the four gospels been identified by that point, but had been acknowledged as authoritative above all other gospels for several hundred years.
I am saying that there is a lack of evidence for that position.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
This is the place to have out that argument, Alogon?
You mentioned it yourself upthread as if the usage were standard. I gather that, if there is a distinction, Catholic would have to be a subset of catholic; hence being anti-catholic is broader than being anti-Catholic. And you claimed that Long Ranger is the former.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
You mentioned it yourself upthread as if the usage were standard.
Context, Alogon. That's what it means in this context.
quote:
I am saying that there is a lack of evidence for that position.
Under the apparent argument "Long Ranger is the only one who has ever read about the issue."
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Under the apparent argument "Long Ranger is the only one who has ever read about the issue."
Under the argument that nobody has provided a source I can look at that argues anything to the contrary.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
Page 76 of The Story of Christianity: Vol 1 by Justo L. Gonzalez. He establishes that extra-canonical books fall into two groups: texts from fringe groups which were never widely considered part of the canon, and general reading texts which were consistent with Church teachings, widely read, but not formally cut out of the canon until the time of the Nicene Council.
We've been trying to make the point to you for a while now that there was no formal list of canonical books, but there was a canon. The 4 gospels we have today and the writings of Paul enjoyed recognition very early. The Church simply didn't see the need to limit the canon until about the time of the Nicene Council.
The limitation of the canon did not cut out heretical works. Those were never considered canonical. It cut out non-heretical works which were still considered to be edifying reading, but were not thought to be of apostolic origin. This does not serve your end of discrediting the Christian canon.
[ 07. September 2012, 20:08: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Page 76 of The Story of Christianity: Vol 1 by Justo L. Gonzalez. He establishes that extra-canonical books fall into two groups: texts from fringe groups and which were never widely considered part of the canon, and general reading texts which were consistent with Church teachings, widely read, but not formally cut out of the canon until the time of the Nicene Council.
Thanks, I'll look that up
quote:
We've been trying to make the point to you for a while now that there was no formal list of canonical books, but there was a canon. The 4 gospels we have today and the writings of Paul enjoyed recognition very early. The Church simply didn't see the need to limit the canon until about the time of the Nicene Council.
And I've been making the point to you that there is no reason to believe this. The gospels were known, yes. That is not the same as saying that they were canonical and other books were non canonical. Where are you getting this idea from?
quote:
The limitation of the canon did not cut out heretical works. Those were never considered canonical. It cut out non-heretical works which were still considered to be edifying reading, but were not thought to be of apostolic origin.
How do you know this? Where did you read this?
quote:
This does not serve your end of discrediting the Christian canon.
The truth will set you free, Zach (a gnostic saying if ever there was one..).
[ 07. September 2012, 20:11: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
And I've been making the point to you that there is no reason to believe this.
Whelp, I just won my bet that providing the sources you've been screaming for wouldn't actually change your argument one iota.
[ 07. September 2012, 20:24: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
I haven't read your source yet, so I can't tell if it supports your assertion. Given your previous use of sources, I doubt it.
Apparently the earliest complete codex (with all of the books of the New Testament) was the Codex Sinaiticus from the mid fourth century. Sadly this doesn't help settle the argument either way because it is after Nicaea. But interesting, I thought.
I also includes the Shepherd. Grrr.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
You do know that the middle of the fourth century coincides with the Nicene Council, and dating the Codex to then would therefore reinforce the point that the canon was settled by then?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
I'm having trouble reconciling "there is no reason to believe this" with "I haven't read your source yet."
I keep getting some kind of cognitive dissonance that drowns out all else.
Anybody else figure it out?
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
Anybody else figure it out?
Yeah, but it isn't something one says in Purgatory.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
No, Nicaea was 325. By the end of the fourth century we know that it had been settled. The question is whether it was settled prior to Nicaea, and this doesn't help because it isn't old enough.
The Council of Hippo eventually laid to rest discussion of what was to be in the canon in 393 so it is no great surprise that late 4 century codex were very similar to this.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm having trouble reconciling "there is no reason to believe this" with "I haven't read your source yet."
I keep getting some kind of cognitive dissonance that drowns out all else.
Anybody else figure it out?
First Zach quotes a source:
quote:
Page 76 of The Story of Christianity: Vol 1 by Justo L. Gonzalez. He establishes that extra-canonical books fall into two groups: texts from fringe groups which were never widely considered part of the canon, and general reading texts which were consistent with Church teachings, widely read, but not formally cut out of the canon until the time of the Nicene Council.
Then he makes an assertion
quote:
We've been trying to make the point to you for a while now that there was no formal list of canonical books, but there was a canon. The 4 gospels we have today and the writings of Paul enjoyed recognition very early. The Church simply didn't see the need to limit the canon until about the time of the Nicene Council.
The limitation of the canon did not cut out heretical works. Those were never considered canonical. It cut out non-heretical works which were still considered to be edifying reading, but were not thought to be of apostolic origin. This does not serve your end of discrediting the Christian canon.
There is no way to know whether the assertion is backed up by the source. Given the way Zach has expressed himself, he appears to have given a source and then made an assertion he believes to be true.
The source itself, as Zach has quoted it, is making an assertion, which is not backed up by other scholars that I've read. Maybe it has a good argument, I don't know, I haven't read it.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I think Dafyd's post is worth considering.
A modern parallel might be that if in AD3000 anyone cares enough to examine the books circulating in AD2000, they might conclude that there was a substantial plurality regarding the accepted canon. Books of Mormon, Watchtower tracts, Deuterocanonicals and Dan Brown books were circulating along with everything else. To some extent they would be right - there was plurality. But to say it was therefore all undefined would be going too far.
[ 07. September 2012, 21:08: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
Unless you are saying that the binder of the Codex decided right then and there what was in the Bible and what wasn't, and that all other lists were based on that one source, it points to a preexisting tradition. The middle of the fourth century is only a decade or two after the council, which isn't much time for a canon to spread across the Roman world. The fact that widespread sources such as the Council of Hippo, St Athanasius, and the Codex all agreed on basically the same canon further reinforces the argument for a widespread, preexisting tradition.
Even less proof for your assertion that the Gospels weren't agreed upon by Nicaea, but whatever.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
We've been trying to make the point to you for a while now that there was no formal list of canonical books, but there was a canon.
A canon, by definition, only exists if there is a formal list. That's what a canon is.
(The amount of straw sent flying by both sides on this thread is getting to blinding levels.)
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
That depends on whether the codex and council are reflections of practice or efforts to standardise and enforce orthodox belief, surely.
Even if they are reflections of practice, that isn't necessarily to indicate that there was an agreed canon (or even in the notion of a canon) pre Nicaea.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
A canon, by definition, only exists if there is a formal list. That's what a canon is.
That's not how the Church Fathers understood the canon. Everyone on hand has already denied that there was a formal list, so long ranger's tantrums about the lack of one would prove that he's not really reading our arguments too closely.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
A canon, by definition, only exists if there is a formal list. That's what a canon is.
That's not how the Church Fathers understood the canon. Everyone on hand has already denied that there was a formal list, so long ranger's tantrums about the lack of one would prove that he's not really reading our arguments too closely.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
That's not how the Church Fathers understood the canon.
How do you bloody know that? Which Fathers?
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
For someone who claims to be so well read, I would hope you could answer for us how the Church Fathers understood the writings of the New Testament, Long Ranger.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
We've been trying to make the point to you for a while now that there was no formal list of canonical books, but there was a canon.
A canon, by definition, only exists if there is a formal list. That's what a canon is.
(The amount of straw sent flying by both sides on this thread is getting to blinding levels.)
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
So.. I have to prove that the 'Church Fathers' (presumably meaning Justin Martyr, Origen etc) believed in the notion of a canon. When I don't and they didn't.
If not these, then who? Where are you getting this notion from?
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
So.. I have to prove that the 'Church Fathers' (presumably meaning Justin Martyr, Origen etc) believed in the notion of a canon. When I don't and they didn't.
What you believe is basically irrelevant, since we're talking about what was believed at the beginning of the Council of Nicaea. And to that end it becomes extremely important to establish how the Church Fathers understood the concept of canon.
If by "canon" you mean a formal list of what's in and what's out, then everyone on hand has denied such a thing existed. If by "canon" you mean "A generally agreed upon set of writings accepted as inspired," then that certainly did exist, and we've provided proof that you've simply decided to ignore again and again.
[ 07. September 2012, 21:40: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Not quite - the position being argued is that there was such a thing as New Testament scripture by Nicaea in 325 which was so widely accepted that it didn't even need mentioning. Moreover some have argued in this thread that not only had the four gospels been identified by that point, but had been acknowledged as authoritative above all other gospels for several hundred years.
I'm pretty sure nobody on this thread is arguing that the four gospels had been acknowledged as authoritative for several hundred years before Nicaea.
I think 'there was such a thing as New Testament Scripture by Nicaea in 325' is ambiguous. If you mean something exactly analogous to what you get in a modern Bible, no, probably not. But there was it seems to me a broad consensus on what texts had apostolic authority. The arguments between the Arians and Athanasians were undertaken largely on the basis of a shared set of texts.
You're on even weaker grounds in claiming that the four gospels hadn't been recognised as having special authority. I don't think that there's any grounds to imply that they were considered merely four texts among others at any point later than the end of the second century, and probably earlier. Even gospels not rejected as heretical, such as the infancy gospel of James which was widely influential, seem to have been considered of lesser authority.
(Oh and sorry for the double post - connection problems.)
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
I should add that the vague boundaries of the New Testament at that time only become a problem if one of the widely read extra-canonicals offers profoundly different doctrines than the canonical books we use today. The Shepherd of Hermas doesn't, so its inclusion in the Codex is not a problem for our argument. The Gospel of Thomas does, but was not widely read, certainly not widely read at the time of the Nicene Council, so it doesn't present any problem to us either.
[ 07. September 2012, 22:10: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Zach, if you have any sources which suggest that your understanding is supported by scholars, then please show them. If not, please fuck off.
That seems a strange thing to say as you have yourself quoted no-one at all in support of your non-standard opinions. "Non-standard" in the sense that most of the people who write histories of the early church (more than one mentioned on this thread already) seem to agree that the four gospels were generally accepted by most churches before the end of the second century, and that the various other "gospels" never were.
I don't think anyone here has said that they think there was a book containing within one set of covers exactly the same texts we have in our New Testaments and no others, widely circulated in the second or even third century. So its a bit of a straw man to keep on telling everyone that they have no evidence that there was such a thing.
And why are you getting so angry about this question? Does it mean something personal to you in some way?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And why are you getting so angry about this question?
Zach82's behaviour on this thread has made me want to call him to Hell. And I agree with him. So I don't think the long ranger's anger is inexplicable.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm pretty sure nobody on this thread is arguing that the four gospels had been acknowledged as authoritative for several hundred years before Nicaea.
quote:
ken said earlier in this thread
Some or other of the non-canonical gospels may have been popular in various times and places but they were never accepted as apostolic by mainstream churches. Not even close. Marcion and a few others may have rejected some of the canonical books, but others didn't. Saying that the four gospels and some (not all) of the other NT writings were "certainly accepted by almost all churches sometime in the 2nd century, quite likely before the end of the 1st" is a simple statement of fact.
I do not believe that either of your positions can be established with evidence. On the one hand we have a considerable Marcion movement which had a lot of influence and did not hold this position. It is true that we have notable Church Fathers who strongly argued for four gospels but there were some, such as Clement, who used the gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Ethiopians and others. Euseibus did produce lists of 'accepted' and 'disputed' and 'rejected' books in the fourth century, and whilst the four gospels are accepted, other canonical books are listed as disputed. Bizarrely, Revelation is listed as both accepted and rejected.
Ehrman says "During the second and third centuries, however, there was no agreed upon canon—and no agreed upon theology. Instead,
there was a wide range of diversity: diverse groups asserting diverse theologies based on diverse written texts, all claiming to be written by apostles of Jesus."
quote:
I think 'there was such a thing as New Testament Scripture by Nicaea in 325' is ambiguous. If you mean something exactly analogous to what you get in a modern Bible, no, probably not. But there was it seems to me a broad consensus on what texts had apostolic authority. The arguments between the Arians and Athanasians were undertaken largely on the basis of a shared set of texts.
Well, I can see some evidence of this as an argument in scholarship, such as from Callahan
"Sometimes when the New Testament scholarship discusses the matter of canon formation, the story implied is that there are some smoke filled rooms somewhere in the 2nd century and a bunch of these cigar smoking Christian big shots got together and they decided who was going in and who was going out and then... it was a wrap, they closed up and then everything else was on the cutting room floor.... If we return to Irenaeus' argument for the canon, I think precisely the contrary is closer to a more responsible historical reconstruction, and that is that there's some kind of consensus among people in the Jesus movement as to what constitutes reliable tradition, reliable literature - literature that they want to read or they want to hear over and over again, and other kinds of literature that they don't want to hear. And, of course, there are groups that have differences of opinion about this. There's some discussion about certain books that can be read but can't be read in church, for example. You can read them on your own, but there's a kind of parental advisory on them or something, and you don't read them in church and you're careful when you read them by yourself, this kind of thing. Or there's some pieces of literature that a lot of people are reading but that the Grand Poobahs in the church don't want them to read. But these really constitute special cases that imply a kind of consensus that are formed very early about the kind of literature Christians used that spoke to their self-identification and by which, they in turn, identified themselves.... That's kind of touchy-feely; it's hard to get a get a historical fix on it, but it's got to have been there. That was a development... from the bottom up, as opposed to from the top down. In Irenaeus' voice, I think we're hearing some top down arguments ex-post facto."
However this seems to be arguing against the consensus of opinion, in my view. Careful analysis suggests that a broad section of the early church revered an oral Christian tradition above any written materials, that originally the term gospel referred exclusively to orally recalled words of Jesus and that scripture was thought to be only the Old Testament. Koester has several early writers quoting gospel sayings of Jesus without naming their sources, which appear to not be from the canonical New Testament - for example Ignatius in the early second century, the Didache uses the formulation of the Lord's prayer from Matthew but with significant differences in the words used. Polycarp knew Matthew and Luke but does not seem to quote from them as gospels.
It is hard to say what status and how widely the documents found at Nag Hammadi were accepted, but they show varied documents with different theologies existed in early centuries.
quote:
You're on even weaker grounds in claiming that the four gospels hadn't been recognised as having special authority. I don't think that there's any grounds to imply that they were considered merely four texts among others at any point later than the end of the second century, and probably earlier. Even gospels not rejected as heretical, such as the infancy gospel of James which was widely influential, seem to have been considered of lesser authority.
Other than a few writers who said wildly different things about the writings they took to be authoritative (and we don't really know how authoritative and influential these writers were in the period they wrote), I don't know how anyone could know that there was a core of accepted gospels and others considered of lesser authority until we get to the late fourth century when the orthodox party within the Christian church had wrestled control and were beginning to specify which books were now scripture and canonical.
Too look back at those who conform to this idea in previous centuries (the 'proto-orthodox') and conclude that they represented a majority view within the developing church seems counter-intuitive and to belie the range of views and theologies in the early church. If there had been some kind of consensus (both in the notion that there was such a thing as an authoritative collection of writings and the books that should/would be included), I think there would have been mention of it in Niceae and more quoting of it in previous centuries.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
Ehrman says...
Well that explains a lot. You have read a few sensationalists, mostly misinterpreted them, and now believe you are the only one who has read about the matter because you feel just so good about being more clever than orthodox Christians.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
'Nuther fun fact: The anti-Christian work The True Word, written by one Celsus the Platonist, circa 177, cites the four Gospels we all know and love in its attacks on the Christian Faith, but cites none of the extra-canonical Gospels.
[ 08. September 2012, 17:15: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Koester has several early writers quoting gospel sayings of Jesus without naming their sources, which appear to not be from the canonical New Testament - for example Ignatius in the early second century, the Didache uses the formulation of the Lord's prayer from Matthew but with significant differences in the words used. Polycarp knew Matthew and Luke but does not seem to quote from them as gospels.
Again, a bit of a straw man here. Those writers are all closer to the crucifixion than they are to Nicaea.
(You mentioned Clement, but didn't give references.)
quote:
Other than a few writers who said wildly different things about the writings they took to be authoritative (and we don't really know how authoritative and influential these writers were in the period they wrote), I don't know how anyone could know that there was a core of accepted gospels and others considered of lesser authority until we get to the late fourth century when the orthodox party within the Christian church had wrestled control and were beginning to specify which books were now scripture and canonical.
'Wildly' in your first line is a considerable exaggeration.
You say skeptically that we don't know how influential or representative the writers who support later orthodoxy were, but you then abandon that skepticism when talking about writers not representative of the later orthodoxy. And while Irenaeus' later influence may be doubt, we know that Origen was one of the most respected and influential figures in patristic theology. (The condemnation of Origenism was over a hundred years after Nicaea.)
The rest of your paragraph is question-begging.
From the wikipedia article on the Oxyrhynchus papyri: here up to about 350 AD the oxyrhynchus rubbish dump has nine or ten fragments of non-canonical gospels, representing at least four different documents and possibly more, and twenty five fragments from the four canonical gospels. Now, if we use that as an indication, (yes, that's problematic) then that suggests that in Alexandria the canonical gospels had 250% of the circulation of non-canonical gospels by 350AD.
quote:
Too look back at those who conform to this idea in previous centuries (the 'proto-orthodox') and conclude that they represented a majority view within the developing church seems counter-intuitive and to belie the range of views and theologies in the early church. If there had been some kind of consensus (both in the notion that there was such a thing as an authoritative collection of writings and the books that should/would be included), I think there would have been mention of it in Niceae and more quoting of it in previous centuries.
Why counterintuitive?
And the fact that the consensus isn't mentioned in Nicaea I think tells in favour of the consensus. As has been said on this thread previously, things that aren't in dispute don't get mentioned.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
And the fact that the consensus isn't mentioned in Nicaea I think tells in favour of the consensus. As has been said on this thread previously, things that aren't in dispute don't get mentioned.
For the sake of brevity, let us stipulate that Hairy Biker's bullet list of the creed is reasonable. Recall, he identified it as quote:
In AD381 Christianity was defined by the Nicene Creed as a belief in:
• The Trinity
• The Church
• Baptism
• Resurrection
• Life of the World to Come
So, based on your stated principle, you believe that these things were in doubt among Christians in 381? That strikes me as highly unlikely.
--Tom Clune
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
For the sake of brevity, let us stipulate that Hairy Biker's bullet list of the creed is reasonable. Recall, he identified it as quote:
In AD381 Christianity was defined by the Nicene Creed as a belief in:
• The Trinity
• The Church
• Baptism
• Resurrection
• Life of the World to Come
So, based on your stated principle, you believe that these things were in doubt among Christians in 381? That strikes me as highly unlikely.
--Tom Clune
Working from Wikipedia article on Council of Nicaea
- Trinity Yes this is crucial to the debate at the council
- The Church yes the status of lapsed Christians and those baptised by Heretics are questions about the nature of the Church
- Baptism - yes see above
- Resurrection I expect so I suspect Arianism maintained God could not die therefore Jesus didn't hence no resurrection
- Life in the world to come is the one I can't find
Looks pretty much as if it was shaped by the debate within the council to me.
Jengie
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Resurrection I expect so I suspect Arianism maintained God could not die therefore Jesus didn't hence no resurrection
I am certainly no expert on Bishop Arius, but from what I've read of him and his followers, it seems extremely unlikely that they would both believe that Christ was created and that He couldn't die. More generally, you are conflating the entire concil's agenda with the creed, which is the specific question of the OP.
Little of the issues about the Church made it into the creed, which was reworked a number of times to try to exclude Arianism. This is harder than you would think -- because the whole thing was a political battle between Arius and Athanasius, and the Arians kept finding reason to be comfortable with the creeds but Athanasius was never willing to accept anything short of anathamizing his enemy Arius and his followers.
The creed may well be a reasonable expression of the Christian faith, but the whole episode of its creation is a shameful excess of Church politics run amok. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As has been said on this thread previously, things that aren't in dispute don't get mentioned.
Recall, he identified it as quote:
In AD381 Christianity was defined by the Nicene Creed as a belief in:
• The Trinity
• The Church
• Baptism
• Resurrection
• Life of the World to Come
So, based on your stated principle, you believe that these things were in doubt among Christians in 381? That strikes me as highly unlikely.
The Trinity was certainly in dispute. The other items, less in dispute, get a lot less space in the creed. (But donatists disputed the church bit, and the resurrection of the body raised eyebrows among the philosophically minded.)
But I think my phrasing was a little bit careless, and I'll rephrase:
Things that were in dispute did get mentioned.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
Arius was never a bishop, though like most heseriarchs he was frequently portrayed as one. His cause was championed by the bishops Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea, which is certainly confusing enough.
Their catch phrase was "There was when the Son was not." The main beef of the Arians was that Jesus must have been a creature. He might have been the first and best creature, made before all worlds, but not eternal like the Father. They somehow had the idea that making Christ a creature, in whom Godhead dwelt, maintained monotheism better than the Catholic faith.
Posted by Elephenor (# 4026) on
:
I may be wrong, but I think Clement of Alexandria's (c.150-215) attitude may be illustrative. As is well known he is familiar with many 'apocryphal' texts, and deploys them in ways later orthodox writers wouldn't (sometimes with the quasi-scriptural formula 'it is written'). But when disputing with an ascetic critic of marriage, Julius Cassianus, who had deployed a text from the Gospel of the Egyptians to make his case, Clement shows he nevertheless makes (and believes he can appeal to) a fundamental distinction:
"In the first place we have not got the saying in the four Gospels that have been handed down to us, but in the Gospel of the Egyptians." (Stromateis III.93)
On the narrower question of the status quo on the eve of the Council of Nicaea, I find the argument from the Donatists quite compelling. They schismed in 311, just over a decade before the Council, but after a century of independent development we find no dispute between them and their Catholic rivals over the scriptural canon.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
I have never said that there is no evidence of anyone taking four gospels to be authoritative, just that this is not evidence of widespread acceptance of this before the fourth century.
Clearly Clement and Justin Martyr and Origen had a lot of influence on the establishment of the New Testament canon - yet each had a different idea of what should be 'in' and 'out. For example, Clement appeared to think the Didache and Shepherd are to be considered scriptural.
quote:
“It is such a one that is by Scripture called a thief. For that reason it is said, ‘Son, do not be a liar; for falsehoods leads to theft.’” Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Bk. 1,
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I don't follow your argument - is the evidence that Clement quoted the didache? If so that doesn't necessarily elevate it to the status of scripture, whatever that would mean back then.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't follow your argument - is the evidence that Clement quoted the didache? If so that doesn't necessarily elevate it to the status of scripture, whatever that would mean back then.
In the first half of the quote he appears to call scriptural the second half, which is from the didache.
I agree, it is pretty problematic given the question of who called what scripture in the first and second centuries and what they meant.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
OK, I get it now.
That is an interesting quote. Although I think viewing the didache as potentially scripture or cannon or whatever doesn't really conflict with anything in the 4 gospels.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
We've given you ample evidence for a relatively stable canon, Long Ranger, and why the margins of the canon were not clearly defined. So it's no use simply repeating that we haven't done so yet again.
It seems that you continue to frame the issue in an anachronistic manner. Up thread you ignored an argument because it reflected mere practice, not authority. But that's precisely the distinction that a Church Father would not make. What the Church used was authoritative for them. The Catholic Faith won out after Nicaea, against all odds, because it better explained the practices of the Church. We keep citing these lists they came up against you, and you ignore them again and again, but they point to a widespread practice, and that discredits your story of complete canonical chaos.
Your sensationalist books do not say anything that anyone here did not already know, though they do frame their facts in a misleading manner.
You also keep citing second and third century groups as proof as a lack of consensus, but we here are talking about the fourth century. Not only were those groups fringe groups or localized offshoots, they had ceased to be an issue before the Council of Nicaea.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
Just so you know, Zach, I am not ignoring your argument, I am ignoring you. Until you show some respect for me, I am not planning to communicate with you.
You can post whatever crap you like, I am not going to reply any more.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
You haven't exactly been polite yourself, so you saying so is profoundly hypocritical.
Come on. Show us you can make a sound argument instead of just reasserting over and over again.
[ 10. September 2012, 13:36: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
Gentlemen, remember to engage the argument, not the person.
--Tom Clune, Purgatory Host
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
This argument is confusing me. Its like there is a hidden agenda no-one told me about and actually everyone is talking about somethign else other than the apparent topic of the thread. And also being a lot ruder than they usually get away with round here.
Summary of the argument used on these thread so far:
Hairy Biker "Why do people think A, B and C?"
Almost Everybody Else: "Because of D, E, and F"
Long Ranger: "NO! NOT X, Y & Z, at all! D, E & G!".
Almost Everybody Else: "Oh, we agree with you abut D & E, but we think F is good too. How did X, Y & Z get into the argument? No-one mentioned that."
Long Ranger: "DIE, SPAWN OF SATAN!!!!!!!!!!"
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
Sorry, that was written before Tom's host post posted.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
Well since you put it like that, ken, I'd characterise the argument as:
Hairy Biker "Why do people think A, B and C?"
Almost Everybody Else: "Because of D, E, and F"
Long Ranger: 'Hang about, how do you know that?'
Zach: 'Because it is the truth and if you're arguing with this your undermining the holy catholic and apostolic church..'
Long Ranger: 'OK, but there don't appear to be many scholars who think D E and F - in fact most seem to think X Y and Z'
ken: 'no, it is obvious, everyone thinks D E and F'
Long Ranger: 'no they don't, where do you get that from?'
Zach: 'NO, A B and C! And what is your agenda for even saying X Y and Z?'
Long Ranger: 'well, here is a link to some ancient Christian writings which do not seem to support X Y and Z'
Someone else: 'that is just a bunch of links. And not very important anyway'
Long Ranger: 'OK, but how do you know that? Do you have sources for that opinion or that A B and C are true?'
Zach: 'As we keep telling you A B and C! Why don't you listen to our sources? Are you the devil?'
Long Ranger: 'Will you give me the sources or what?'
Zach: 'A B and C!'
etc.
Which just goes to show, we can all play the game of creating cartoon versions of the debate, ken.
edit: no offense taken ken. I prefer satire to personal attack.
[ 10. September 2012, 14:03: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Which just goes to show, we can all play the game of creating cartoon versions of the debate, ken.
Oh, absolutely. It's just that his accurately reflects what's going on, and yours doesn't.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
Not only is the long ranger offended by my posts, it doesn't seem that he's even read them.
[ 10. September 2012, 14:57: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I have never said that there is no evidence of anyone taking four gospels to be authoritative, just that this is not evidence of widespread acceptance of this before the fourth century.
Er... what more evidence would you need?
quote:
Clearly Clement and Justin Martyr and Origen had a lot of influence on the establishment of the New Testament canon - yet each had a different idea of what should be 'in' and 'out. For example, Clement appeared to think the Didache and Shepherd are to be considered scriptural.
quote:
“It is such a one that is by Scripture called a thief. For that reason it is said, ‘Son, do not be a liar; for falsehoods leads to theft.’” Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Bk. 1,
Two points.
1) That's got nothing to do with the Gospels. Everyone agrees that the boundaries of what was accepted as the authoritative apostolic writings were still fuzzy by Nicaea. Revelation wasn't fully accepted in the east until the second millennium as I understand it. I at least am taking issue with the idea that a core of four Gospels and Paul wasn't settled by the late second century.
2. I agree with what you said way back in the thread that 'according to the Scriptures' in the Nicene Creed almost certainly refers to the Old Testament. I doubt that early Christians started referring to books other than the Old Testament as the Scriptures until the New Testament canon was fully established or almost so. As such, it seems to me it's highly likely that in your quote Clement means the Old Testament by 'the Scriptures'. (And then brings in the Didache, if that's what it is, as a witness.) I certainly think it's not credible that on the one hand Clement thought of a set of Christian writings as being on a par with the Old Testament, yet that on the other the Council at Nicaea did not.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Er... what more evidence would you need?
The fact is that a few early writers held to Pauline letters and four gospels can be interpreted in two ways - ie that the Fathers are examples of mainstream Christian opinion or that they're stating an opinion which later became accepted as Orthodox. I don't believe there is any kind of consensus and that in fact there are many different, competing, forms of Christianity in the first three centuries.
I think we'd need a very clear indication that following a certain point, all future Christian writers accepted the same four gospels and the same epistles as inspired, and I don't accept that we have that until after Nicaea.
quote:
Two points.
1) That's got nothing to do with the Gospels. Everyone agrees that the boundaries of what was accepted as the authoritative apostolic writings were still fuzzy by Nicaea. Revelation wasn't fully accepted in the east until the second millennium as I understand it. I at least am taking issue with the idea that a core of four Gospels and Paul wasn't settled by the late second century.
First, not everyone accepts that the 'boundaries were fuzzy'. And we're not just talking about whether the Revelation is in or not. I just don't accept that characterisation. Second, there is the idea in this thread that there was some kind of agreement on a proto-canon at the Nicaea Council , which was generally accepted (both the idea that recent writings could be scripture on the same basis as the Old Testament and basic agreement on what was contained within the New Testament). Other than assertion, which seems to mostly come back to the opinions of Origen, I can't see how anyone can possibly come to that conclusion.
quote:
2. I agree with what you said way back in the thread that 'according to the Scriptures' in the Nicene Creed almost certainly refers to the Old Testament. I doubt that early Christians started referring to books other than the Old Testament as the Scriptures until the New Testament canon was fully established or almost so. As such, it seems to me it's highly likely that in your quote Clement means the Old Testament by 'the Scriptures'. (And then brings in the Didache, if that's what it is, as a witness.) I certainly think it's not credible that on the one hand Clement thought of a set of Christian writings as being on a par with the Old Testament, yet that on the other the Council at Nicaea did not.
Well, I can't explain it. Even if Clement thought the Didache and other recent writings were to be considered scriptural (in the accepted Old Testament sense), it appears that others did not for at least 100 years.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
quote:
I think we'd need a very clear indication that following a certain point, all future Christian writers accepted the same four gospels and the same epistles as inspired, and I don't accept that we have that until after Nicaea.
That's precisely what we have provided ample evidence for. You've just chosen, arbitrarily in most cases, to ignore the evidence and arguments presented. You're presenting the same argument over and over again, and it's still a bad one: that being that the existence of heretical works and fringe groups in the early Church implies that there was no general consensus.
Yet the widespread references to the same books is evidence that there was, and the fact remains that works like the Gospel of Thomas never enjoyed widespread use. Their existence does not imply widespread acceptance.
Widespread acceptance would be indicated by widespread references to these works, and those references are lacking. You've provided no evidence or strong argument against the "general use canon" picture posited by people here.
I've attempted here a perfectly civil post. If any part is offensive to you, I apologize for being insensitive.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
:
I hope it isn't too personal a comment here, but as I was grocery shopping between these two posts it struck be how much arguing with the long ranger here is like arguing about evolution with a creationist.
[ 10. September 2012, 18:24: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by Elephenor (# 4026) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
In the first half of the quote he appears to call scriptural the second half, which is from the didache.
I think that appearance may be an illusion. The passage comes in the context of a discussion of the role of Greek Philosophy (the greater part of which, Clement argues, had been plagiarised from barbarian races, not least the Hebrews), and the first half of the quote appears to refer back to an earlier citation of John 10:8 ("all who came before me were thieves and robbers") which introduced the 'thief' thematic, not forward to the Didache quotation.
This passage is important evidence of Clement's familiarity with the Didache, but no more clear-cut evidence he accounted it 'scripture' than his immediately preceding quotation from Pindar.
(I should add that I'm not disputing the point you introduced this passage to illustrate - that Justin, Clement and Origen, though agreed on the four Gospels - by inference in the case of Justin - and at least thirteen of the Pauline Epistles, differed among themselves at the fuzzy boundaries of the proto-canon.)
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I don't believe there is any kind of consensus and that in fact there are many different, competing, forms of Christianity in the first three centuries.
I think we'd need a very clear indication that following a certain point, all future Christian writers accepted the same four gospels and the same epistles as inspired, and I don't accept that we have that until after Nicaea.
Yet you're willing to claim that there wasn't such a consensus with no such clear indication. You're applying a different standard of evidence to the two propositions.
quote:
First, not everyone accepts that the 'boundaries were fuzzy'.
Ok - who doesn't accept that the boundaries were fuzzy?
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Yet you're willing to claim that there wasn't such a consensus with no such clear indication. You're applying a different standard of evidence to the two propositions.
Yes, because it is much more difficult to prove a negative.
H0: there was a consensus on the notion of a New Testament canon (in the sense of divinely inspired scripture, if not the actual books in the canon) prior to the Council of Nicaea.
H1: there wasn't.
I don't believe there is enough evidence to prove the null hypothesis, hence have no alternative but to accept H1. It would be nice and neat and tidy to believe that there was a continuous and divinely ordained record of Jesus from AD33 through to Ad397 when the New Testament was set down, but I don't believe the evidence is there.
I believe that the facts of a) uncertainty between the Church Fathers about what material was authoritative b) differences in understanding of the term 'gospel' and the relative importance given to written material over the oral tradition c) widespread differences between what books were being used in individual churches d) success of heretical movements such as Marcion's church suggest a lack of evidence to support the assertion that there was a consensus at Nicaea that meant discussion was unnecessary.
I don't actually need to prove another option because it isn't me that is making that assertion.
quote:
Ok - who doesn't accept that the boundaries were fuzzy?
Well, for a start there are those who consider the canon to be inerrant. It is hard to believe that they would countenance fuzzy scripture. And there are those who believe these disagreements are more than fuzzy boundaries but are far more substantial.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Well, for a start there are those who consider the canon to be inerrant.
Red herring. This argument is not about whether the canon is inerrant, it's about whether there was a canon in the fourth century.
Though you've found a convenient reason to ignore my perfectly reasonable points...
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Yes, because it is much more difficult to prove a negative.
H0: there was a consensus on the notion of a New Testament canon (in the sense of divinely inspired scripture, if not the actual books in the canon) prior to the Council of Nicaea.
H1: there wasn't.
I don't believe there is enough evidence to prove the null hypothesis, hence have no alternative but to accept H1.
As you'll have picked up early Christian writings are not my field of expertise. But this is. And it is so muddled I can barely contain myself.
Firstly it is philosophically muddled to describe "no consensus" as a null. The identifiable thing that one should be looking for is disagreement. If one finds disagreement, one knows there is disagreement. Finding no disagreement might mean there is a consensus, or it might mean you haven't sampled enough different opinions to find the disagreement.
So I can sort-of agree with H0=there was a consensus, except I'd put it as H0=there was no disagreement.
But you absolutely cannot prove a null hypothesis (or any hypothesis really, but especially not a null hypothesis). They can only ever be rejected. You certainly don't accept H1 because of a lack of evidence for H0.
But having said that I don't think this is an appropriate framework for his particular kind of question. You are reading a variety of sources, and getting an impression of what was going on back then. You can't assign probabilities to anything, so better off arguing descriptively, I think.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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Fair enough, I bow to the more knowledgeable.
I'll add logic to my list of things to learn more about.
[ 10. September 2012, 20:05: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
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Let's pretend statistical reasoning can be applied. This is how I would go about it.
We take the lists of documents that are regarded as scripture, we propose that if there is no set order than any document would be equally likely to be in any of the lists. Lets say there are 40 documents in the lists and a list has 10, then that would mean there was a 1/4 chance of any single document being in the list. So this is adjusted by number of document in the list. This is simple probability modelling.
If we sum this for each document we have the distribution of documents that should happen if the data was random. We can now compare this computational frequencies with the actual frequencies and see if there is evidence of consensus. A simple Kolomgorov-Smirnoff test will do for a real distribution against a hypothesised.
The first thing you need to note is that the null is lack of consensus, the alternative is some degree of consensus. The null is easier to model. The alternative is different documents has different probabilities of being on a list.
It is useful to do this, because it show us that in some way you have got the argument back to front.
Jengie
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
some degree of consensus
But of course there has to be some degree of consensus. Otherwise you are suggesting a world in which each desert father has his own collection of entirely random documents including anything from a Babylonian prostitute's diary to the Upanishads and a dilettante's guide to building pyramids.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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If statistics aren't the long ranger's style, there's the fact that the writings of St Paul and the Synoptic Gospels are are older than the extra-canonical texts he's brought up.
I exclude the Gospel of John because, while it's still probably older, it might overlap with some of the older extra-canonicals.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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This thread has proven fruitful in my own knowledge of the development of the canon, so it isn't a wash.
Another interesting bit of data: The early Christian thinker Tatian attempted to harmonize the disparate accounts of the Gospels into one work called the Diatessaron. It is dated between 160 and 175, and uses only the 4 canonical Gospels, with no other additions.
[ 10. September 2012, 20:51: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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Hmm. What do you make of the Apology of Justin Martyr? In chapter 35, he appears to think the (obviously fake) Acts of Pilate are authentic. Interesting.
"...And after He was crucified they cast lots upon His vesture, and they that crucified Him parted it among them. And that these things did happen, you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate"
I'm a little flabbergasted to learn that Pilate is considered a saint in some parts..
[ 10. September 2012, 21:24: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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Hmm.. even more confusion.. the Acts of Pilate I linked to above are thought to be a later fake.. presumably Justin Martyr was referring to a different document.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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I make of it that Justin Martyr considered the Acts of Pilate to be authentic. Once again, no one here is arguing that there weren't borderline cases. We are arguing that there was a stable core of books that enjoyed wide acceptance, with the other books enjoying lesser levels of use in the Church.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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By the by, the wikipedia article is to be believed, the Acts of Pilate only presents itself as an objective account of the passion for official records, not as scripture.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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Agreed, I just thought it was interesting. By the way, with regard to your older-and-better thesis, it might interest you to know that one of the very oldest fragments of gospel that we have is from an unknown and non-canonical gospel.
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Agreed, I just thought it was interesting. By the way, with regard to your older-and-better thesis, it might interest you to know that one of the very oldest fragments of gospel that we have is from an unknown and non-canonical gospel.
Not really, a least not in that I feel it disproves the "General Canon" theory that people here are actually arguing. The so-called "Q" source is lost too.
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