BigMack
Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!
Much refreshed from my hiatus from the thread, and I wish you all well. I'll pop in occasionally. :)
About 5 years ago there was a conference among conservative Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox. I'm reading a book about it, called "Reclaiming the Great Tradition." Couple of great quotes from the introduction seem appropriate for the discussion:
The words “ecumenical” and “traditional” were to be seen in a certain sense as in tension, concern for the former having so often gone hand in hand with a neglect of the latter. In fact someone suggested early in the planning that our slogan should be “Let all the antiecumenical forces of the Christian world unite!”
Father Richard John Neuhaus captured the spirit of our thinking in the opening address when he observed that in many cases “our unity in the truth is more evident in our quarreling about the truth than in our settling for something less than the truth..”
CS Lewis writes, “It is at her center, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine. And this suggests that at the center of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice.”
The person who is struggling to love God with his entire heart, soul and mind, who is intent on following the shortest path to this center, simply does not have the time to consider other paths than his own. And when he is forced to, when the presence of other paths can no longer be ignored, often the only way to keep them from interfering with his focus on Christ is to reject them as errors…The only alternative in such a case is indifference, and indifference means spiritual death. It is with good reason that we put blinders on a horse if we mean for it to plow a straight row…We need to be careful that our busyness around the ecumenical household does not distract us, like Martha, from “the one thing…needful” (Lk 10:42).
Christ makes it clear that the interiority of real Christian union is not the same as the inwardness of pious feeling or tolerant sentiment. True unity will come instead only in the interior of God himself and to the measure that we are drawn into his trinitarian life.
Have any of you had a similar experience?
I made it just fine. Get to work, and get on the tread mill:)
Becky
They are called Sheol, Abaddon, Beer Shahat, Tit ha-Yawen, Sha'are Mawet, Sha'are Zalmawet: and Gehenna. It requires three hundred years to traverse the height, or the width, or the depth of each division, and it would take six thousand three hundred years to go over a tract of land equal in extent to the seven divisions.
Each of the seven divisions in turn has seven subdivisions, and in each compartment there are seven rivers of fire and seven of hail. The width of each is one thousand ells, its depth one thousand, and its length three hundred, and they flow one from the other, and are supervised by ninety thousand Angels of Destruction. There are, besides, in every compartment seven thousand caves, in every cave there are seven thousand crevices, and in every crevice seven thousand scorpions. Every scorpion has three hundred rings, and in every ring seven thousand pouches of venom, from which flow seven rivers of deadly poison. If a man handles it, he immediately bursts, every limb is torn from his body, his bowels are cleft asunder, and he falls upon his face. There are also five different kinds of fire in hell. One devours and absorbs, another devours and does not absorb, while the third absorbs and does not devour, and there is still another fire, which neither devours nor absorbs, and furthermore a fire which devours fire. There are coals big as mountains, and coals big as hills, and coals as large as the Dead Sea, and coals like huge stones, and there are rivers of pitch and sulphur flowing and seething like live coals.
I often attempt to remove the cover of falsehood that many leaders of Christianity appear to place over the truth surrounding various issues. One issue is the New Testament Canon. More specifically, I inform Christians that what they call the New Testament was formed during VERY turbulent times and that there is clear and irrefutable proof of scribal manipulation during its formation. There definitely were "changes" made to the texts, changes that occasionally impact crucial doctrine.
Anyone can check and will discover there are literally thousands of differences between the various New Testament manuscripts. I hasten to add that most of these differences do not impact the truth to be found in the writings; however, the differences are there and sometimes they DO impact truth. I also wish it to be known that my comments do not apply to the ORIGINAL autographed copies; however, THERE ARE NO ORIGINAL AUTOGRAPHED COPIES EXISTING TODAY. The available New Testament manuscripts are hand made copies of hand made copies of hand made copies of hand made copies of hand made copies of hand made copies... In short, the available manuscripts are far removed from the originals penned by whoever actually wrote them. Given all the potential for error in copying AND the fact that these copies were often done by biased scribes, it is certain what we have today is NOT what would be found in the originals. If I recall correctly from my study of this topic, no 2 manuscripts out of the thousands that exist agree completely. Even if there are some that do agree, that still does not diminish the fact that thousands of textual variations exist in a document that is naively considered by many to be the "perfect" Word of G-d. If such is the case, those that exalt the New Testament as being "infallible" or "without error" must consider G-d to be a rather scatterbrained, confused deity. It is REALLY strange how many Christian apologist present as "proof" of the New Testament's authenticity the fact that thousands of manuscripts exist. WHAT THEY HIDE IS THAT THOSE MANUSCRIPTS DIFFER IN SOME CRUCIAL PASSAGES AND VIRTUALLY NONE AGREE WITH ONE ANOTHER! So, in actuality, their "defense" of the "infallibility" of the New Testament falls apart when the entire truth is told, which of course is why they conceal it.
Why would Christian leaders be so fearful of the truth getting out, often misrepresenting the enormous "authenticity" problem that exists? Why do they implant deep distrust of scholars among Christians - scholars that are generally simply reporting the facts as they really are? If Christian leaders are truly promoting "Truth", why do they fight against truth in their representation of the New Testament as some sort of "perfect" writing? I have become increasingly alarmed at the SUPPRESSION of truth within Traditional Christianity and am forced to ask many "Why" questions, since Christianity presents itself as a champion of truth. Of course, most Christians are unaware of this and are simply trying to worship in a sincere manner. They are placing their trust in organizations and men they do not expect will deceive them.
I firmly believe the New Testament to be filled with much truth; however, those that say it is "infallible" or the "Word of God" are either ignorant of the facts, ignoring the facts, or being untruthful. I am NOT suggesting the New Testament is worthless and do not consider most potential scribal errors to be significant. I simply point out the sure fact that the New Testament is NOT perfect and CERTAINLY NOT the infallible "Word of God". Even the supposed authors of some of the New Testament books are educated guesses! This is a core reason for my opposition to groups such as the KJV-Onlyist, those that promote the King James version is the only pure Word. They strangely do not tell you that the manuscripts from which the King James version were written were few in number compared to what is now available and that even those few had thousands of textual differences. Whereas I DO feel the KJV is one of the best translations - possibly THE best - I do not think it proper to misrepresent the facts as do those promoting that the KJV is free of any error.
Conversely, the same is not the case regarding the Tanakh (Older Testament). Even though it is almost 4 times larger than the New Testament (77% of the Bible is the Tanakh), the Hebrew manuscripts show amazing similarity. One reason for this is the extraordinary care and reverence shown the Hebrew Scriptures by the HEBREW scribes. Unlike the New Testament scribes, who often looked upon the NT manuscripts as weapons to be fashioned to promote their biased views, the Hebrew Scribes considered it unthinkable to dare alter their sacred texts.
Strangely, my exposure of these facts causes many to label me a "heretic", "damned" or even a "disciple of the antichrist". It is more than a bit odd how someone that promotes the ACTUAL truth is condemned by Traditional Christian leaders. (What does that suggest regarding the true "spirit" that guides leaders of Christianity? Would the Holy Spirit lead them to lie, conceal the facts, or attack those that present these true facts?) Many that are revered as "church fathers" rejected ENTIRE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, something FAR more "destructive" than my mere suggestion that scattered crucial verses show clear signs of corruption and that the only TRUE Scripture is the Tanakh - the same Tanakh the noble Bereans used to test all they were taught (Acts 17:11)! Also, of course, the Protestant churches do not accept the Catholic apocrypha. My point being, what makes my acceptance/rejection of scattered verses "heresy" yet the acceptance/rejection of entire books and the WAR of canonization that went on in the early centuries "divine inspiration"? I say again, many of the church fathers rejected entire books of the New Testament, yet they are revered! So, if what I suggest is "heresy", then why are men that promoted greater "heresy" by rejecting large chunks of the New Testament considered "church fathers"?
A cursory study of the canonization of the New Testament confirms there was widespread disagreement as to what to include in the New Testament. Here is a brief example showing the opinions of only a few of the "church fathers" regarding what they considered scripture. I realize Marcion was condemned as a heretic; however, Marcionism continued (and continues) to deeply influence Traditional Christianity. It is my firm conviction that the historic disregard and/or reduction of importance that most Christians feel toward the Tanakh, which became known as the "Old" Testament due to Marcion's influence, is due largely to the disciples of Marcion that infested (and still infest) Traditional Christianity.
A VERY noteworthy point is that what we today call the New Testament was largely finalized by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, who just so happened to be THE most forceful advocate of the deity of Yahshua (Athanasius was the leader of the faction) and who was not very nice to his opponents. Athanasius was "The Man" among the Trinitarians of his day. (Check out the list again, and you can see how HIS list became YOUR list of New Testament books.) So, obviously, he (THE chief Trinitarian) strongly leaned toward adopting any questionable passages or writings that supported his view against what was in the early centuries the dominant opposition to the Trinity. Yes, up to the time of the council at Nicaea, the Trinity position was NOT the majority opinion, although Athanasius actually rose to power following Nicaea. So, what Bishop Athanasius - THE most forceful Trinitarian of his day - defined as "Scripture" in the year 367 c.e., BECAME our New Testament. HE, ABOVE ALL OTHERS, IS THE ULTIMATE SOURCE OF OUR NEW TESTAMENT CANON, AND HE WAS THE PRIMARY ADVOCATE OF HIS DAY FOR ADOPTION (actually forced acceptance) OF THE TRINITY THEOLOGY!
Facts like these underscore the need for Christians to learn the history - TRUE History - of the early centuries (first 4 centuries). It seems most assume the New Testament just fell from heaven one day into the laps of the early church fathers and have NO IDEA of the intense, biased, political, often bloody battles that were waged for what we now consider the New Testament. Obviously, mistakes in such a horrendously heated struggle are probable as battle lines are drawn and each faction solidifies its position and struggles for the ear of the various emperors. Of course, at the time of the Nicaean Council the Roman emperor was Constantine - a man of historically unwholesome character. The same Constantine that actually hosted the council at one of his plush estates and largely authored the creed that set Christianity on the course of ultimately abandoning the One God and accepting, instead, the pagan traditions of Rome.