| TechniQ.UK United Kingdom. January 08 2011 09:38. Posts 391 | Profile Blog # |
Being a university student of theology and a church ordinand perhaps I could offer some insight into the recent debate that was had over the validity of the bible.
1) Revelation is dated by most scholars both liberal/progressive and evangelical to be around 90-110 CE not 150-200 CE.
2) The books of the new testament were not canonized by a government. Athanasius of Alexandria a 4th century bishop is the first person to have listed the 27 books of the new testament as being authoritative, however before this the authoritative books were largely assumed to be the 27 we have now.
The roman authorities really could not of edited the widely copied and largely distributed books of the new testament. They would need to track them across the grecio-roman world including all the copies that had been made, collect them all, stop people copying them, then re-issue them to all the christian communities in the empire if they wanted to edit them. There is no reputable scholar even liberal or unbelieving scholars who hold that position.
3) The gospels like the gospel of thomas, judas and so on, were not included because
a) they were written in the 3rd century onwards as opposed to the 1st and early 2nd centuries.
b) They were written by communities that were on the fringes of the christian communities and that didn't have mainstream theological ideas.
c) The authorship of Matt, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and indeed the rest of the new testament were all written by either eye witnesses such as Matthew and John who were 2 of the 12 disciples, or by companions of eye witnesses/apostles such as Luke who was with Paul on his missionary journey's and no doubt also had access to Peter and the Jerusalem leaders as they regularly traveled to Jerusalem and had correspondence.
Mark was also a companion of Paul and Luke but more importantly of Peter who became essentially the most important leader in the early church and was one of the 12 disciples.
These later gnostic gospels had no credibility in terms of dating, authorship or theology to the early Christian communities. They weren't mindlessly accepting any writings that came their way.
I would recommend people look into more credible sources of scholarship than the Da Vinci code book and movie which practically every scholar laughs at and recognises that its a fictional representation of Christian history with some small facts added to give it more credibility.
Last edit: 2011-01-08 09:39:40
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| Gofarman Canada. January 08 2011 09:41. Posts 501 | Profile # |
| Thanks for this. It's always good to know there are some people of like mind out in the void. Just a question though, when you say church ordained you mean Roman Catholic right? |
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| TechniQ.UK United Kingdom. January 08 2011 09:44. Posts 391 | Profile Blog # |
Glad to help. No I mean a large protestant denomination in Britain. Rather not give out specifics on tl.net though.
Last edit: 2011-01-08 09:45:02 |
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| kaisr Canada. January 08 2011 09:48. Posts 691 | Profile # |
| what's the official church stance on the validity of the early books of the old testament written by Moses? |
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| TechniQ.UK United Kingdom. January 08 2011 09:56. Posts 391 | Profile Blog # |
Depends which church your talking about.
More conservative churches will say it was written by moses and the part about his death was written by his successor joshua.
More progressive/liberal churches will say there was 4 different sources of authorship that eventually were combined. The J narrative, E narrative, D narrative and P narrative. None of them being moses.
This is called the wellhausen theory developed in the 19th century.
No matter if your an evangelical or liberal though these books will be used. Evangelicals take a more literal approach and give more weight to it, but liberals use them sort of differently. Taking moral or spiritual principals out of the old and new testament.
Last edit: 2011-01-08 09:57:48 |
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| Tuneful United States. January 08 2011 10:59. Posts 327 | Profile Blog # |
b) They were written by communities that were on the fringes of the christian communities and that didn't have mainstream theological ideas.
Doesn't this challenge the notion that 'the bible is the revealed word of God' |
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| TechniQ.UK United Kingdom. January 08 2011 12:14. Posts 391 | Profile Blog # |
The gospels and writings that weren't included were written by the fringe movements.
Not the 27 accepted books. So no it doesn't really bear any relevance to that issue.
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| pyaar United States. January 08 2011 13:18. Posts 423 | Profile Blog # |
On January 08 2011 10:59 Tuneful wrote:
Show nested quote +b) They were written by communities that were on the fringes of the christian communities and that didn't have mainstream theological ideas.
Doesn't this challenge the notion that 'the bible is the revealed word of God'
The books of the Bible are considered by some Christians to be the inspired word of God. The books he was describing with those three points were omitted from the Bible because of the listed reasons. |
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 Z3kk January 08 2011 13:35. Posts 4097 | Profile Blog # |
| Oh, this is very interesting, and also quite enlightening (though it was more a lack of knowledge as opposed to a possession of incorrect knowledge on my part). Thanks for setting the record straight(er)! |
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