Early Christianity

[ena]

The apocrypha have been translated into English. You can read them on line.

You can also read them in the Catholic and Anglican Bibles, where they've been accepted as valuable, if not on par with the rest of scripture, for centuries.

Lev

When you say Bible you really should specify which one. Most of us deal with what is called the protestant Bible. The canon of scripture is unsettled to this day among theologians. Those who reject usually do so for Greek reasons. This is not understood by many people and so they get called liberal theologians. Depending on your point of view and theirs they may be being actually conservative. Bart Ehrman is the first theologian that I have read that can clearly state his reasons for what he believes. So far what I have read seems to be truthful but I have not read "Forged" yet. Bart is agnostic and he states why in "Jesus Interrupted." I do not think it is my place to speak for him on this one. I do think I understand why.

[ena]

The apocrypha have been translated into English. You can read them on line.

You can also read them in the Catholic and Anglican Bibles, where they've been accepted as valuable, if not on par with the rest of scripture, for centuries.

Lev

1 and 2 Maccabees are historical and not fabrication. They detail a Jewish Rebellion. You can look them up for specific details. It happened before Jesus and whether they should be included on not is largely moot. Little is gained or lost by adding them into the Jewish Cannon. The point I like is that some extend inerrantcy to even Jewish histories which smacks of absurdity in my book. I do not think there is a total melding of minds.

[Phil]

The coC is so obsessed with emulation, as if emulation is what God wants. Anyone can emulate the early churches without any spiritual conviction at all. This desire to "look righteous" shows just how superficial the coC doctrine is. They could care less about the inner man. As long as the performance looks correct then it must mean that the Christian is right with God, according to their doctrine. They love "appearances." Yet it violates every virtuous quality that we are taught by our mentors. The term, "don't judge a book by it's cover," doesn't apply in the coC. As long as they follow the pattern and make it look like early Christianity then it must be pleasing to God. Actually they do get credit for following one of the early NT churches....The church at Galatia. If Paul were here today he would admonish the current coC just as he did the church at Galatia. The similarities are hard to miss.

[musicman]

The problem with COC doctrine is the attitude which is condescending towards other faiths. You may find some untruth there. The hardest to detect lies are mixed with truth and defended viciously. If you detect a vicious defense check for lies. For instance you might hear that Baptists don't study their Bible right. I have been in Baptist Churches for many years and have met many lay people that know their Bible well. This includes the Old Testament because the basis of future things is there as well as the Messiah. They do not have the fear that if you get killed in a car accident on the way to getting Baptized you go to Hell. The church that professes to be founded in 33 AD does not know much about early Christianity. Early Christians were in a state of trauma. Their leader had been murdered. The church as it was; was very divided. As time went on various groups had various writings that they considered scripture.

The Coc is not the one you read of in the Bible as they say. That is arrogance in and of itself. Actually I'll take that back; when I read about the Pharisees I see characteristics of the Coc. The first century church did not have the Coc "plan of salvation" which is nothing more than ripping verses out of context. If the "plan of salvation" is valid those verses would follow one after another in the same chapter and book. The plan of salvation of the first century church is simply the gospel. The first century church were not looked down upon because they didn't bring their Bible to service (of course they didn't have any, but they had the gospel).

Very true.. the C o C is NOT "the first century" church of the Bible. Its "plan of salvation" and "5 Acts of Worship" are, as mentioned here, verses taken out of context and pasted into sacred rule books.

[musicman]

The coC is so obsessed with emulation, as if emulation is what God wants. Anyone can emulate the early churches without any spiritual conviction at all. This desire to "look righteous" shows just how superficial the coC doctrine is. They could care less about the inner man. As long as the performance looks correct then it must mean that the Christian is right with God, according to their doctrine. They love "appearances." Yet it violates every virtuous quality that we are taught by our mentors. The term, "don't judge a book by it's cover," doesn't apply in the coC. As long as they follow the pattern and make it look like early Christianity then it must be pleasing to God. Actually they do get credit for following one of the early NT churches....The church at Galatia. If Paul were here today he would admonish the current coC just as he did the church at Galatia. The similarities are hard to miss.

Phil has made some good observations here. C o C worship is all about performing the "5 Acts". If all 5 of these aren't done, then worship isn't valid or pleasing to God.

The "pattern" C o C claims to follow is entirely manmade..all its teachings to the contrary. C o C has decided what it wants to believe and what a worship service ought to be, then ripped "proof texts" out of context to support those.

[lvmaus]

The coC is so obsessed with emulation, as if emulation is what God wants. Anyone can emulate the early churches without any spiritual conviction at all. This desire to "look righteous" shows just how superficial the coC doctrine is. They could care less about the inner man. As long as the performance looks correct then it must mean that the Christian is right with God, according to their doctrine. They love "appearances." Yet it violates every virtuous quality that we are taught by our mentors. The term, "don't judge a book by it's cover," doesn't apply in the coC. As long as they follow the pattern and make it look like early Christianity then it must be pleasing to God. Actually they do get credit for following one of the early NT churches....The church at Galatia. If Paul were here today he would admonish the current coC just as he did the church at Galatia. The similarities are hard to miss.

Phil has made some good observations here. C o C worship is all about performing the "5 Acts". If all 5 of these aren't done, then worship isn't valid or pleasing to God.

The "pattern" C o C claims to follow is entirely manmade..all its teachings to the contrary. C o C has decided what it wants to believe and what a worship service ought to be, then ripped "proof texts" out of context to support those.

Paternalistic churches are stuck in a 2000 year old rut. Patterns they subscribe to are picked helter-skelter, then etched in stone as being exactly what God commands; any variation in order, form, or implementation is considered a sinful perversion with eternal consequences.

[ena]

[quote="lvmaus"
Phil has made some good observations here. C o C worship is all about performing the "5 Acts". If all 5 of these aren't done, then worship isn't valid or pleasing to God.

The "pattern" C o C claims to follow is entirely manmade..all its teachings to the contrary. C o C has decided what it wants to believe and what a worship service ought to be, then ripped "proof texts" out of context to support those.[/quote]
{/quote]
I like several points that have been made. Consider that the books of the Bible were being written across the first century. There is no proof that any one church had all of scripture or agreed on what was scripture. During the 4th century the church came into power and began the hateful task of eliminating heresies. Marcion we know about from the complaints by early church fathers. We do not have copies of his hack job on Luke which would be interesting in a historical sense. Probably they were purged. The lack of copies shouts that. You cannot really know. The point is how can you see a pattern in anything written by humans. You could says the holy spirit guided that. But human mistakes are evident when you compare the four gospels because they come from different oral traditions. Where is the pattern? The pattern is an artifact of selection. The canon of scripture is even being debated today as to authenticity. It is in the province of theologians. Most of the Apostles probably were not literate. Very few were in that day because your free time was spent trying to survive.

[ena]

The literacy rate was quite low. Acts 4:13 reads as follows in KJV:

13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.
Acts 4:13 (KJV)

Bart Ehrman pointed out that Greek said that they were unlettered. I checked him out. The word is "agramatos". This is the transliterated form using our alphabet. It means unlettered. An English translation can be illiterate. But the translators did not do that. Here is Young's Literal Translation for this verse:

13 And beholding the openness of Peter and John, and having perceived that they are men unlettered and plebeian, they were wondering--they were taking knowledge also of them that with Jesus they had been--
Acts 4:13 (YLT)

Here we have Peter and John being called unlettered. Didn't they write 1 and 2 Peter and 1, 2 and 3rd John as well as John and Revelation? This is a very good example of the trouble when you read a translation. It is not known that John of Patmos is John the Apostle. There is the apologist dodge: "Oh they used a scribe." Some believe John of Patmos is the same as John the Apostle. Either way fine by me. The Bible is not Junk but there are issues.

The Strong's Concordance number for this word is 62. You can look up these numbers on the web. Here is the link:
http://studybible.info/strongs/G62

[Lev]

Here we have Peter and John being called unlettered. Didn't they write 1 and 2 Peter and 1, 2 and 3rd John as well as John and Revelation? This is a very good example of the trouble when you read a translation. It is not known that John of Patmos is John the Apostle. There is the apologist dodge: "Oh they used a scribe."

I'm not sure that this is a "dodge." As I understand it, the majority of the NT epistles were likely written by dictation to a scribe. Romans 16:22 even includes a greeting from the scribe who "wrote" the letter. Galatians 6:11 apparently contained a portion of Paul's own handwriting, as opposed to that of the scribe, which presumably comprised the rest of the document (only in the original version, of course).

The unlettered status of Peter and John is to have been expected, given their blue-collar careers as fishermen. Their sudden ability to communicate in the native languages of the various people gathered in Jerusalem at Pentecost was therefore a surprise--just as it would be today if the American crew of a commercial fishing trawler were suddenly able to converse in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Mandarin, Turkish, Hindi, and Russian--all in addition to their native English.

Lev

[ena]

The unlettered status of Peter and John is to have been expected, given their blue-collar careers as fishermen.

Precisely. The problem with most people's thinking is that our literacy rate today is comparatively high. The worlds are not the same. Since the invention of the printing press the world made a massive change. This is similar in scope to differences in our world that the computer has made or the cell Phone. You can read the Gospel of Peter. There is an excellent Wikipedia article on it. The landscape is littered with stuff like this.