Acts 2

[longdistancerunner]

I have a view here I have never heard about what is taught in some CoC's. Has anyone else heard this?

"Acts 2 is the hub of the Bible meaning that it’s the account of the beginning of the one true church, the primitive church, the first-century church, the New Testament church.

The gospel accounts may be of greater value than the Old Testament, but they still give accounts of the age preceding the birth of the church.

Therefore, the gospels are not as important as the sermons in Acts, the epistles, and Jesus’ messages for the seven churches of Asia."

This is a comment I found on Reddit, I will be glad to provide the source of it if anyone wants.

[agricola]

Somebody said the quiet part out loud, huh?

[Ivy]

Hadn't heard that view, but I've been long out of cofc. I do remember Acts 2:38 being kind of elevated. So as Agri said, maybe that piece was just unspoken because they didn't dare. Sounds like some heresy right there.

[B.H.]

the strange thing is that Jesus baptized people too, or had his apostles and disciples do it. a big deal is made in acts of rebaptizing Johns disciple but just saying.

maybe the church was a fetus before Acts 2?

[Shane R]

Yes. I remember this sort of teaching. Either the place of the Gospels was viewed as an open question or they were considered part of the OT. Sometimes the argument would be made that the new covenant was "in Christ's blood" so anything before the cross was not the new covenant.

Acts as the CoC hub of the Bible is something I've been thinking about recently. It seems to me that they really only like the first 9 chapters. After the conversion of Paul, things start to get messy. You've got to reckon with the Holy Spirit coming on the household of Cornelius, what appears to be a gathering of more than a local congregation in Acts 15, the interaction with John's disciples in Acts 19 and other thorny passages. Come to think of it, anything they don't like in Acts they write off as only applicable to the 1st century church.

[agricola]

Absolutely we were taught that the Old Law was 'nailed to the Cross' and that everything UP TO that point was under the 'old law' (explains why Jesus was going to the Temple and talking about sacrifices and tithes). And THEN you had the 'new law' and Paul, Paul, Paul all over the place.

If the NT were a novel, any editor would be ALL OVER Acts and Paul, because he's a brand new character introduced in the fourth chapter with no backstory tying him to 'things before' and the plot takes a sharp turn. What are you going to do? Downgrade the first four chapters to 'prologue' and throw in some quick references to connect Paul to the earlier characters? Oh wait, Acts did that.

Seriously, why is Paul so important? He takes over completely from Acts on, the entire story of the 'early Church' is Paul, and he almost NEVER references anything JESUS talked about in the gospels.

[B.H.]

Many scholars think Paul was an unwelcome rival who set up his own branch of Christianity opposed to what James the brother of Jesus, Peter, and Jude beleived and taught about Jesus and his message

Later Bible writers kinda merged the two groups together and wrote books like Acts to smooth over differences and make it appear they were all one group.

[longdistancerunner]

Absolutely we were taught that the Old Law was 'nailed to the Cross' and that everything UP TO that point was under the 'old law' (explains why Jesus was going to the Temple and talking about sacrifices and tithes). And THEN you had the 'new law' and Paul, Paul, Paul all over the place.

If the NT were a novel, any editor would be ALL OVER Acts and Paul, because he's a brand new character introduced in the fourth chapter with no backstory tying him to 'things before' and the plot takes a sharp turn. What are you going to do? Downgrade the first four chapters to 'prologue' and throw in some quick references to connect Paul to the earlier characters? Oh wait, Acts did that.

Seriously, why is Paul so important? He takes over completely from Acts on, the entire story of the 'early Church' is Paul, and he almost NEVER references anything JESUS talked about in the gospels.

Some comments: We really don''t know Paul was a real person or that any books of the NT were written by him. No independent historical evidence. There can be little doubt the versions of his epiphany are just made up. Also the term apostle didn't really have the meaning in the time he is reported to live as now. Much of his story had to be inserted later. And don't we think the Pauline letters (whatever they are) were written before the gospels? If the person people call Paul was real he seems to have known very little about Jesus (doesn't say much about him). I think there is some recent scholarship that says there wasn't a Paul.

[Ivy]

Wow. That hypothesis would certainly raise the hackles of many a cofc. Paul's supposed writings were revered and seen as foundational to the whole cofc brand. But...who would have created Paul, and why?

[longdistancerunner]

Wow. That hypothesis would certainly raise the hackles of many a cofc. Paul's supposed writings were revered and seen as foundational to the whole cofc brand. But...who would have created Paul, and why?

It is quite possible there were several people who did many of the things Paul did and they were blended into one person in the oral histories. This type of thing I think is actually not uncommon, people are developed by oral stories and even historians as famous people when they really did do all the things that made them famous.