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Call No Man Your Father

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
The "teacher" is the "Spirit of Revelation" (1 John 2:27), the "anointing", the rock/petras, the church is built on (Matthew 16:17). The "Father" is "Our Father, who art in heaven", and the "leader" is Christ, in as much as one remains in his Word.(1 John 3:9). As for the NT, it was canonized by the daughter of Babylon, under the leadership of one of the "healed" "beast", the emperor Constantine. But it still contains the "wheat", mixed with the tare seed, in order for the "false prophet" to have a chance to "deceive" those who dwell on the earth", as Paul , the false prophet, is part of the foundation of the church instituted by the Roman emperor Constantine.
Thanks for your interpretation even if I don't buy it.
 

nPeace

Veteran Member
Because it says in the NT that Jesus and the apostles taught with authority. So, do you believe that or not?
I am not getting the connection between having authority, and having the title Father, or Rabbi.
You said it makes no sense. Why?
 

nPeace

Veteran Member
It doesn't, so you misinterpreted what I was saying.

The use of "father" as applied to a priest comes from the Greek word "presbyteros", whereas an alternative translation is "elder". OTOH, the use of "Father" as stated by Jesus comes from the Hebrew word "Abba", which is more of a casual term for "father".
What does Rabbi mean? Teacher correct? Is there a difference between having the title Teacher, for example, when addressing someone, "Teacher", and calling someone a teacher, for that is what the person is - a teacher?
Same with "father"?
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
I am not getting the connection between having authority, and having the title Father, or Rabbi.
You said it makes no sense. Why?
I would think that should be obvious, so my guess is that you just want to argue whatever.

Hey, if you don't like using those words in these contexts, then maybe don't use them. If someone else wants to, them maybe leave them be so as I think that they can make their own decisions without your "help".
 

nPeace

Veteran Member
I would think that should be obvious, so my guess is that you just want to argue whatever.

Hey, if you don't like using those words in these contexts, then maybe don't use them. If someone else wants to, them maybe leave them be so as I think that they can make their own decisions without your "help".
You made an argument, but yet you don't seem able to say why it's a valid argument.
Answering a question with "I would think that should be obvious, so my guess is that you just want to argue whatever. ", seems to me a way of saying, "Well I can't give an explanation, so make it appear as though I know how to answer, but there is no meed to."
How does that help anyone, including yourself? The question is rhetorical.
I didn't make the argument. You did. I gave a comment, which you disagreed with, and believe that you are correct.
If you are correct, then I would expect you could show it.
The fact that you can't is an admittance that you want to be right, regardless of your being wrong.... and unable to deny it.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
That would not be correct as first century writings were added to by second-century writings as continuations, etc. And, as a matter of fact, the "mark" of the early Church was not which canon you had since that had not yet been decided, but was based on where your leaders appointed by previous leaders that could trace their appointments back to the apostles through the laying on of hands.
The scholars which I've read don't agree with this. But as far as second-century writings being mere "continuations", I can't agree. "Women shall not speak in the church" injected into Paul's writings in 1 Cor. for example, are not actually an expansion on his thoughts. It's an outright fabrication, trying to make Paul say something he never alluded to anywhere else.
 

Infinitum

Possessed Bookworm
It's been a while since I laid my eyes on a Bible, so there's a high chance I've forgotten the nuances, but Jesus has always struck me as an apocalyptic figure. He not only speaks of the kingdom to come, he's repeatedly reminding his followers that earthly business soon doesn't matter (except in some rare cases, like when upholding Roman law).

I know there's plenty of argument about whether Jesus thought himself in be the prophesied king or merely one that comes before the mundane or spiritual (take your pick) revolution, his intent to me seems to have been to separate the believers from the rest of society.

Considering how many early Christian sects retreated into the desert, and how many of the earliest saints were hermits, I think it's safe to say that the interpretation was as least common in the following decades. Equally we're told in the Bible that early Christians gave up their personal possessions, which that too to me seems like a sign of people believing an apocalypse was imminent. After all, it all culminates in the Book of Revelation.
 

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
In the Ten Commandments it says to honor your father and mother. How is one supposed to honor their father if they can’t even call him their father?
 

Jumi

Well-Known Member
The literalists of today would be in trouble with it. In Rome it could have been seen as mutiny against the social order, the traditional family unit:

Families in Rome were paterfamilias. This means that the father had all the authority in the family. The father's authority was absolute. As long as the father was alive, he controlled all the property for the children and his wife. The father could even go as far as whipping his children, selling them into slavery, or even killing them if they did not obey his wishes. After the death of the father, the eldest son would take the role of the head of the family.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
In the Ten Commandments it says to honor your father and mother. How is one supposed to honor their father if they can’t even call him their father?

Well, that's the point.

Jesus appears to have been tried and delivered over to execution by the Judean religious authorities - the High Priest Caiaphas, his father-in-law Annas and the Sanhedrin - because he was denounced as a Torah-breaker and claimant as viceroy of God's Kingdom, despite claiming to be a faithful, Torah-observant Jew himself.

In some respects, he was very Torah-observant and even issued his own interpretations of halakhah. For instance, he observed Passover, worshipped in the Temple and recognised the teaching authority of the Pharisees derived from the Oral Torah.

On the other hand, he neglected to refer at all to ritual purity as mandated in Leviticus, was lax when it came to Sabbath observance, seems to have emphasised inner purity over outward conformance with the law and while claiming to abide by the Ten Words or commandments, encouraged his followers to reject paternal authority and assert their independence from the patriarchal household.

In spite of his idiosyncracies in relation to the Torah, the early Jerusalem church was Torah-observant and continued to sacrifice in the Temple.

As such, the Jesus movement was simply a variation within the context of Second Temple Judaism but it's interesting that Jesus's brother James was himself stoned to death by another High Priest in 62 A.D. according to Josephus for disobeying Torah:

Josephus (37-100). The Death of James, the Brother of our Lord. Warner, et al., comp. 1917. The Library of the World's Best Literature

AND now [Claudius] Cæsar, upon hearing of the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judæa as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high-priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus….

But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high-priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed: when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority].

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others [or some of his companions].

And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the King [Agrippa] desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent.

Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which account King Agrippa took the high-priesthood from him when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus the son of Damneus high priest.


James had been a popular and respected member of the Jerusalem citizenry and his execution appalled most of the other Jewish elites, who obviously disagreed that he had been a heretic, leading to the High Priest bring deposed by the next Roman prefect for his extra-judicial murder of James the Just.

So, we have at least two members of the Jesus family - Jesus himself and his brother James - who were murdered by the Sadducee priests on charges of deviance from Torah.
 
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metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
The scholars which I've read don't agree with this. But as far as second-century writings being mere "continuations", I can't agree. "Women shall not speak in the church" injected into Paul's writings in 1 Cor. for example, are not actually an expansion on his thoughts. It's an outright fabrication, trying to make Paul say something he never alluded to anywhere else.
There are believed to be numerous incidents whereas midrashim were injected into the scriptures, but usually it was as a clarification or as positive exclamation. So, that really doesn't change much of anything, especially because the authorship of many of the books is conjectural anyway.

My point was and is that we really can't isolate the canonical writings from the writings that occurred slightly later as the reality is that it's basically a continuum of what Jesus and the apostles started.

IOW, the apostolic Church didn't just suddenly come to an end.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
You made an argument, but yet you don't seem able to say why it's a valid argument.
Simply because you're not making any sense because the different foundations of the word "father" has been explained to you, plus it's not a great mystery what the word "rabbi" means and how it is applied in scripture.

Therefore, there's no where for me to go on this to make it any simpler for you. You keep on asking nonsensical questions because the points have already be covered, thus unless you have any sensible questions to ask, I'm done.
 

2ndpillar

Well-Known Member
In the Ten Commandments it says to honor your father and mother. How is one supposed to honor their father if they can’t even call him their father?

Well, to start with, you could make sure they are cared for in their old age. You could keep from shaming them. You could honor them by not robbing banks, or kicking the homeless.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
It's been a while since I laid my eyes on a Bible, so there's a high chance I've forgotten the nuances, but Jesus has always struck me as an apocalyptic figure. He not only speaks of the kingdom to come, he's repeatedly reminding his followers that earthly business soon doesn't matter (except in some rare cases, like when upholding Roman law).

You are quite right, Jesus certainly seems to have been eschatological in his outlook - which isn't surprising, given that he was at first a disciple of the explicitly apocalyptic figure of John the Baptist, who railed against alleged abuses of power by the Herodian Tetrarchs in Galilee and the Jerusalem priestly establishment, and would appear to have instituted his rite of water baptism (which Jesus affirmed and continued) as a rival to the rituals of the Temple cult.

Jesus, while calling for or prophesying the Second Temple's destruction, appears - if we can judge by the practices of his first followers - to have been somewhat more even-handed and even a bit more positive in his appraisal of the Temple cult than John, although this is obviously contested amongst scholars.

But he was definitely, at the same time, a much more scandalous person than John and in this manner, I'd like to modify, somewhat, your opinion that Jesus's "intent to me seems to have been to separate the believers from the rest of society," analogous to the later desert monastic movement of the third century and the idea that, "many of the earliest saints were hermits". I don't agree on this point and neither do the vast majority of historical Jesus scholars.

Unlike his mentor John - who espoused an austere, hermit-style desert lifestyle defined by asceticism in places siphoned off from mainstream society, not unlike the Essenes - Jesus was adamantly not asceticly-minded. Quite the contrary, he was viewed as a shameless hedonist in his dietary and table-fellowship habits, with his only 'ascetic' quality being a celibate mode of life that he didn't impose on his followers (most of whom, including the Twelve Apostles, were married and thus sexually active men who took their wives with them while spreading the gospel).

As Jesus himself stated in response to his Pharisaic and priestly critics:


John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon'; the
Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a glutton and
a drunkard
, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!
' (Matt. 11.1, 8f. / Luke
7.33
)​


What's fascinating, is that the accusation that Jesus was a "glutton and drunkard" who had loose company, is the very same accusation levelled against the disorderly son who rejects his parents' authority and disgraces them in the Torah, the punishment for which is stoning (the fate Jesus's brother James was subjected to, on the basis of alleged Torah-infringement!):



"If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them even after they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. They shall say to the elders of his town, 'This son of ours is disloyal and defiant; he does not heed us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.' Thereupon the men of his town shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst: all Israel will hear and be afraid" (Deuteronomy. 21:18-21).



If I may reference the eminent scholar Professor E.P. Sanders at this junction (because he ties all of this up with both Jesus's eschatology and his rejection of paternal authority/disrespect for dead parents) in chapters 13 - 14 of his magnum opus, The Historical Figure of Jesus:



The beatitudes (Matt. 5 . 3- 1 2; slightly different in Luke 6.2tr-26) bless the downtrodden, the poor and the meek, as well as those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers. These sayings imply demands, but the clearest note is sympathy and promise for those who needed them most.

The tone of Jesus' ministry was compassionate and not judgemental. People should be perfect, but God was lenient - and so was Jesus, acting on his behalf...

Jesus himself did not live a stern and strict life...

Jesus was conscious of his differences from John, and he commented on them more than once. The prostitutes repented when John preached - not when Jesus preached. John was ascetic; Jesus ate and drank. And Jesus was a friend of tax collectors and sinners - not of former tax collectors and sinners, which is what Zacchaeus was after he met Jesus, but of tax collectors and sinners. Jesus, I think, was a good deal more radical than John.

Jesus thought that John's call to repent should have been effective, but in fact it was only partially successful. His own style was in any case different; he did not repeat the Baptist's tactics.

On the contrary, he ate and drank with the wicked and told them that God especially loved them
, and that the kingdom was at hand. Did he hope that they would change their ways? Probably he did. But 'change now or be destroyed' was not his message, it was John's. Jesus' was, 'God loves you . '

Moreover, some people criticized Jesus because his disciples did not fast when followers of John the Baptist and Pharisees were fasting, and he responded by asking a rhetorical question: 'Can the wedding guests fast as long as the bridegroom is with them?' (Mark 2. 1 8-22 & parr.) . Jesus was no Puritan...

Finally, we must note one of the most interesting aspects of Jesus' ministry: he called 'sinners', and apparently he associated with them and befriended them while they were still sinners. In Matthew 11.1 8f. , quoted just above, Jesus' critics accused him of this behaviour.

Jesus' perfectionism did not make him shun the company of even the worst elements of society. On the contrary, he courted it. Jesus was not given to censure but to encouragement; he was not judgemental but compassionate and lenient; he was not puritanical but joyous and celebratory...

Jesus' particular kind of perfectionism goes very well with his view that in the kingdom many human values would be reversed. The kind of perfection he had in mind was suitable for the poor and the poor in spirit: the perfection of mercy and humility. Jesus also, of course, wanted his hearers to be moral in the normal sense of the word (honest and upright) , but the main aspect of God-like perfection was mercy. He displayed this by being gentle and loving towards others, including sinners...

Jesus died on a Roman cross, executed as would-be 'king of the Jews' . When we consider his message - God's all-embracing love, the need for commitment to him, love shown to everyone, even enemies - it is hard to understand how he came to this end...

The order to 'let the dead bury the dead' was not only contrary to normal human sensitivity, it was also against any reasonable interpretation of the Jewish law, which commands honour of father and mother. The offensiveness of the saying makes it unlikely that 'bury the dead' is a metaphor. The would-be follower probably had a dead father, and Jesus said to him, 'Let the (spiritually) dead bury the (physically) dead. ' If so, Jesus thought that following him should override everything else...

If Pharisees or others dedicated to the law had heard it, they would have been scandalized. We learn from the passage not that Jesus opposed honouring father and mother, but that he had an attitude towards his own mission that would lead to ignoring the law if that were necessary. His call was more important than burying the dead. Something of this attitude may have been communicated to the public, and many would have been deeply offended. If this particular incident led nowhere, Jesus' attitude did, as we shall now see.

Jesus' view that his mission took precedence over everything is more fully expressed in the passages about the 'sinners' . Jesus called as one of his followers a tax collector (Levi in Mark and Luke, Matthew in Matthew) , and the man accepted the call. Jesus was subsequently accused of eating with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2 . 14- 1 7 & parr.) . This seems to have been a genuine offence: something he actually did that really offended people....

The significance of the fact that Jesus was a friend of the wicked was this: he counted within his fellowship people who were generally regarded as living outside the law in a blatant manner.


(continued....)
 
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Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
It would seem, nonetheless, that Jesus expected a radical eschatological intervention by God in human history, whether within his own lifetime or after (scholars debate whether he himself expected it imminently, as Paul did, and as you say some prominent scholars reject that he was apocalyptic, such as Professor Richard Horsley, preferring to style him as a prophet of social change).

I'm in the eschatological camp, along with the likes of E.P. Sanders, Bart Ehrman, J.P. Meier, Dale Allison, Paula Fredriksen, N.T. Wright and Helen Bond among others, although I recognise that the 'social change' proponents are correct as well (in that the eschatology led to calls for social change as part of an immanentization of the eschaton as reflected in the radical lifestyle to be adopted by the disciples).

This is closely tied to his subversion of societal norms, both of the Judean and Greco-Roman varieties, as you again correctly ascertain. Since he thought that the present order of things was set to be overthrown, he felt at liberty to both affirm his adherence to the Torah and yet instruct his followers to start living in the here and now, according to the angelic form of life he anticipated would become general in the Kingdom of God.

A bit of caution is warranted here: when I, and most modern scholars, speak of an 'eschatological' Jesus - we don't mean what contemporary Protestants would understand by that.

Eschatological literature enjoyed widespread popularity during the period of the Second Temple, typified by a variety of texts roughly contemporaneous with Jesus and his apostles: the Psalms of Solomon, the Book of Enoch, 4 Ezra, Testament of Abraham and the Qumran writings.

The common thematic element in this explosion of apocalyptic literature is not the "end of the world" (as many people understand eschatology today, unfortunately) but rather a time of tribulation followed by a decisive intervention by God that would lead to him establishing His own Kingdom on earth, a paradise of peace and well-being.

As the eminent scholar E.P. Sanders explains in relation to Jesus:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2001/11/15/in-quest-of-the-historical-jesus/


Jesus was a prophet who preached the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God. This expectation of a dramatic end of the current age is called “eschatological” or “apocalyptic.” “The End” in first-century Judaism was not the dissolution of the universe but a decisive change in the world, ushering in a new era and establishing God’s reign throughout the world, peace on earth, and plenty of food and drink for all.

Jesus taught ethical perfectionism, that is, behavior that is appropriate to the Kingdom of God.


And somewhat similarly Richard Horsley writes:


Jesus' proclamation and practice of the kingdom of God indeed belonged in the milieu of Jewish apocalypticism. But far from being an expectation of an imminent cosmic catastrophe, it was the conviction that God was now driving Satan from control over personal and historical life, making possible the renewal of the people of Israel. The presence of the Kingdom of God meant the termination of the old order

Which means, as Bart Ehrman explains in his book Misquoting Jesus:

Whose Word is It?


Most scholars remain convinced that Jesus proclaimed the coming Kingdom of God, in which there would be no more injustice, suffering, or evil, in which all people, rich and poor, slave and free, men and women, would be on equal footing. This obviously proved particularly attractive as a message of hope to those who in the present age were underprivileged—the poor, the sick, the outcast. And the women...

One of Jesus’s characteristic teachings is that there will be a massive reversal of fortunes [in the Kingdom]. Those who are rich and powerful now will be humbled then; those who are lowly and oppressed now will then be exalted. The apocalyptic logic of this view is clear: it is only by siding with the forces of evil that people in power have succeeded in this life; and by siding with God other people have been persecuted and rendered powerless...

In his view, present-day society and all its conventions were soon to come to a screeching halt...Only when God's Kingdom arrived would an entirely new order appear, in which peace, equality, and justice would reign supreme...What mattered was the new thing that was coming, the future kingdom. It was impossible to promote this teaching while trying to retain the present social structure.


Interestingly, Jesus believed his followers were to live in the kingdom already - emulating its ideals even before a miraculous intervention by God arrived to inaugurate the restored Israel. This means it was more than simply future-oriented but rather had tangible consequences for the intermediate 'here-and-now'. E.P. Sanders suggests as much when he opines it is possible that Jesus, in addition to expecting the impending arrival of the Kingdom as a future epoch, also "may have spoken about the kingdom as a present reality into which individuals enter one by one".

In pointing to this looming seismic change in human affairs, Jesus made a powerful symbolic gesture by overturning tables of the moneychangers in the temple. This is the act which a number of scholars - both in the apocalyptic and social change schools - believe led to his execution, though there were obviously other contributing causes. His disciples, after the death and resurrection, continued to expect the restoration of Israel and the inauguration of the new age as indicated by Acts 1:6:


 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
There are believed to be numerous incidents whereas midrashim were injected into the scriptures, but usually it was as a clarification or as positive exclamation. So, that really doesn't change much of anything, especially because the authorship of many of the books is conjectural anyway.
Except there are entire doctrines which claim scriptural authority because most don't make any distinction between an embedded scholars note from the actual texts themselves. There are snake handling churches based upon the end of Mark, which is a later addition, for instance. "Women keep silent in church", is taken as Paul's teaching. And so forth. You additionally have complete books which are from the 2nd century claiming to be written by Paul and instead are reflections of later views, such as that of the myth of apostolic succession. The facts on the ground, as is evidenced by the unearthing of Christian writings from the time, show a very different picture than that latter image of a line of succession, from Jesus, to the disciples, and from the disciples to the bishops of Rome.

My point was and is that we really can't isolate the canonical writings from the writings that occurred slightly later as the reality is that it's basically a continuum of what Jesus and the apostles started.
Why can't we isolate them from later writings? Scholars are able to quite successfully do this. And to say it is a continuum of what Jesus taught, is mythological. It is believed to be the case, but there is no real supporting evidence of this. The texts of the NT, the Gospels in particular basically the author's views of Christian teachings, presented in a narrative story which bends and moves depending on the storyteller.

This is all good and fine as a vehicle for teaching, which is what good mythologies do. But to read back into it a later belief, colorizes the text to be apparently supporting that view. The reader becomes conditioned to see a current belief in reading the texts, which when that patina of a later understanding is removed, the meaning can be considerably different. For instance if you started the NT with 1 Cor. and nothing more, no later reading of the Gospels, you would be removing huge amounts of later views that evolved that colorize your understanding of Paul. There was no Gospel of Mark, let alone the later versions of Mark that Matthew created with his additions, and then later on Luke changing and modifying things to fits into his views.

The whole thing is injections of later schools of thought. These are not the "teachings of Jesus" direct from his mouth to theirs, to the bishops, and to our dinner plate for consumption. This is Pau's Jesus, Mark's Jesus, Matthew's Jesus, and so forth. Collectively all bundled together into a later mythology of the bishops to make it appear as a straight line word of mouth from Jesus to them. This is the nature of mythmaking.

IOW, the apostolic Church didn't just suddenly come to an end.
Technically, it never really existed as such. What we have today is a later creation based upon early views of the many differing schools of divergent Christian thought. There really never was a "unified belief". That came much later, and the myth of apostolic succession was created to support that. I call it a creation of myth of a later orthodoxy.

For instance, one key verse used to support apostolic succession would be, "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." This is from Ephesians 2:20. But this was not written by Paul, but someone in the 2nd century. "Many terms in Ephesians aren't found in genuine Paulines but are found in the later NT writings and early patristic writings. Also, the author of Ephesians uses different words for important Pauline concepts.," which supports what I said about it being a later mythology about the origins of Christianity. From here: Ephesians
 
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metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
The facts on the ground, as is evidenced by the unearthing of Christian writings from the time, show a very different picture than that latter image of a line of succession, from Jesus, to the disciples, and from the disciples to the bishops of Rome.
Please provide such "evidence".

Why can't we isolate them from later writings? Scholars are able to quite successfully do this.
You miss the point, whereas what I was saying is that there is no magical wall that separates 1st century writings form 2nd century writings.

However, with that being said, the Church was in a stage of major transition when the Jesus and the apostles passed away, therefore the Church had to rely on what they ascertained them to have believed and taught, so perfection is not logical under these circumstances. Nevertheless, the Church had a major obligation to try to sum up their teachings and then get into possible applications.

The whole thing is injections of later schools of thought. These are not the "teachings of Jesus" direct from his mouth to theirs, to the bishops, and to our dinner plate for consumption.
We can never be certain of how accurate the "red letters" are, as any theologian well knows. However, it's a mistake to assume that just because we cannot declare inerrancy, thus we should just throw everything out.

Technically, it never really existed as such.
Technically, that is simply not at all true, nor is it even logical. If that were to be the case, then we should just stop going to any church, stop reading any "scriptures", stop having any supposed "Christian" beliefs, because we know nothing.

It is important to see the writings in their context. I had a crisis of faith a bit over 40 years ago because I was attending my wife's Catholic church but I was brought up in a fundamentalist Protestant church, and this same issue and some others came up. So, with contrary claims, how do I get this figured out?

I realized that the "solution" had to lie in reading 2nd century Church writings to see how the Church fathers saw the Church, so I spent myriads of hours doing that over several months. Fortunately, I had taken some theology classes during my undergrad work that helped me know where to find this information.

As it turned out, the basic Protestant line of "sola scriptura" made so little sense, as did their claim that the Church was not an extension of the church of the apostles. There's no magical dividing line between the two, and if you think there is, then maybe produce your evidence. I've studied this for literally thousands of hours over the years, and have yet to see such a line.

There's more, but I gotta stop here anyway for a while.
 
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nPeace

Veteran Member
There are a gazillion things God has not informed us on. Do you think you know?
I would answer that by saying that the reason those gazillion of things are there, is apparently because God wants us to know them... Wouldn't you agree?

If we don't know them I think something is wrong, and I don't think the fault is God's.
As Jesus said, it is written. In scripture, it says,
This takes into account that it is righteous on God’s part to repay tribulation to those who make tribulation for you. But you who suffer tribulation will be given relief along with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels in a flaming fire, as he brings vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus. (2 Thessalonians 1:6-8)

I find in scripture...
It is explained why they don't know. (2 Timothy 4:1-5)
At the same time, God wants us to know, and he says that many will come to know, as was evident in the first century, and is evident today. (1 Timothy 2:3, 4)

However, it seems you do believe that some things can be understood, for you said this
Exactly. Jesus could have easily just considered all his disciples as "Apostles"... But that's not what he did.
...and other things.
So my question is, If you believe that some things can be understood, why not all?
 
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