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Gnostic Gospels

  • 20-05-2009 06:55AM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,981 ✭✭✭


    I'm very curious, why do Christians not accept these texts ?

    How can you justify not accepting them ? What makes Luke, Matthew and John right. But Judas, Thomas and Mary wrong.


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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    Several reasons.
    1. The date they were written.
    The range of dates accepted by scholars for the works you mention are as follows:
    Gospel of Mary 120-180 AD.
    Gospel of Judas 130-170 AD.
    Gospel of Thomas (no hard evidence for this, but most scholars date it to the second half of the Second Century, ie after 150AD).

    Compare this with:
    Matthew 50-100 AD.
    Mark 50-70 AD.
    Luke 59-100 AD.
    John 85-110AD.

    It is clear that the earliest possible dates for the Gnostic Gospels are still decades after the latest possible dates for the four canonical Gospels. Therefore the four reflect the teaching of the early church, quite possible including eyewitness accounts, whereas the Gnostic Gospels reflect much later speculation and imagination.

    2. Citations in other writings.
    We have an abundance of quotes from early Christian writers where they cite the four Gospels, demonstrating that they viewed the four Gospels as authoritative teaching.

    3. Survival of the fittest.
    The decision as to which books became Scripture was not, contrary to urban legend, decided by a Church Council at Nicaea. It was a gradual and very natural process where individual congregations kept the books that they found to be helpful and dumped those that they found to be a load of crock. Gradually a concensus occurred where the four Gospels made the cut and the Gnostic Gospels did not.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,981 ✭✭✭monosharp


    PDN wrote: »
    Several reasons.
    1. The date they were written.
    The range of dates accepted by scholars for the works you mention are as follows:
    Gospel of Mary 120-180 AD.
    Gospel of Judas 130-170 AD.
    Gospel of Thomas (no hard evidence for this, but most scholars date it to the second half of the Second Century, ie after 150AD).
    Nevertheless, scholars generally fall into one of two main camps: an "early camp" favoring a date for the "core" of between the years 50 and 100, before or approximately contemporary with the composition of the canonical gospels and a "late camp" favoring a date in the 2nd century, after composition of the canonical gospels

    Do you ever feel bad twisting things like that ? I don't mean for other people. I mean feel personally bad that you need to ignore opinions that don't agree with your own personal beliefs ?
    Compare this with:

    It is clear that the earliest possible dates for the Gnostic Gospels are still decades after the latest possible dates for the four canonical Gospels. Therefore the four reflect the teaching of the early church, quite possible including eyewitness accounts, whereas the Gnostic Gospels reflect much later speculation and imagination.

    The early church didn't know what its own teachings were for centuries. There were many different opinions on many things. There was no "right" and "wrong". That all changed much much later.
    2. Citations in other writings.
    We have an abundance of quotes from early Christian writers where they cite the four Gospels, demonstrating that they viewed the four Gospels as authoritative teaching.

    And we have the same for the lost gospels. The gnostic gospels only survived because monks who were ordered to destroy them, after church leaders decided they didn't like them and they were to be destroyed, hide them away.
    3. Survival of the fittest.
    The decision as to which books became Scripture was not, contrary to urban legend, decided by a Church Council at Nicaea. It was a gradual and very natural process where individual congregations kept the books that they found to be helpful and dumped those that they found to be a load of crock. Gradually a concensus occurred where the four Gospels made the cut and the Gnostic Gospels did not.

    There were possibly hundreds of different sects of Christians in the early church, each with their own different beliefs. This is fact.

    The 4 canonical gospels 'made the cut' because the church leaders decided the others were heresay. There was even violence against some of the other sects who held different beliefs using different gospels.

    At the end of the 3rd century there were over 20 gospels as well as other texts. Almost 80 different unique works altogether.

    Check this out.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvXz3N6o9ns


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 789 ✭✭✭Slav


    monosharp wrote: »
    I'm very curious, why do Christians not accept these texts ?

    How can you justify not accepting them ? What makes Luke, Matthew and John right. But Judas, Thomas and Mary wrong.
    I think the reason for rejecting Gnostic Gospels is because they are clearly Gnostic. ;)

    Christian Church always distinguished itself from Gnosticism (which predates Christianity). Gnostic Gospels were written outside of the Church, they were foreign to it and they were pushing a teaching that contradicts the Christian teaching. So why they should be accepted by Christians then?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 154 ✭✭Seoid


    The purpose of a gospel is to tell about the life and activities of Jesus - the earliest gospels were spoken messages that were written down and the canonical gospels are thought to be the oldest - Matthew Mark and Luke in one branch and John and the sayings gospel of thomas to have another source not found in the synoptics. The later they get (the further from Jesus' time and disciples) the less historical and more mystical the gospels are - John is the latest and most mystical of the canonical gospels.

    As Slav so succinctly put it, Christianity rejects the gnostic gospels because they were clearly gnostic!
    Gnosticism is probably older than Christianity and doesn't refer to a specific sect but the gnostics were generally dualists and believed that mystical, esoteric knowledge is required to escape the evil material world. You can see how some of them would easily have accepted Jesus but their views were at odds with the majority of Christians and with the Jewish tradition that Jesus came from. Most of the gnostic gospels are not interested in the historical Jesus and claim he was not human. They are fundamentally at odds with the canonical gospels and incorporate Greek, Roman, Egyptian myths and Greek philosophy.
    Already in the 2nd Century Ireneus for example denounced the gnostics and emphasised the 4 canonical gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke & John - and this was long before any church councils.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    monosharp wrote: »
    Do you ever feel bad twisting things like that ? I don't mean for other people. I mean feel personally bad that you need to ignore opinions that don't agree with your own personal beliefs ?
    Do you ever feel bad about asking seemingly honest questions when you're really just looking for an opportunity to pick a quarrel and to make slurs against somebody else's character and integrity?

    If you want a discourse on the Gospel of Thomas that lasts for several pages then I could give you one, but you can find similar stuff by googling.

    There is indeed an early camp that dates Thomas earlier, just as there is an early camp that dates the four canonical gospels much earlier. If I was ignoring opinions that didn't suit my own personal beliefs then I would just have given you the early dates for the four Gospels and said that they were all written before 64 AD. However, I wanted to compare like with like so I gave the date ranges for both the canonical Gospels and the Gnostic Gospels that are accepted by the majority of scholars.

    How about you actually listen to answers that are given to you in good faith instead of acting like an obnoxious pratt?
    The early church didn't know what its own teachings were for centuries. There were many different opinions on many things. There was no "right" and "wrong". That all changed much much later.

    If you read Galatians, written very early in Christian history, you will see that the Early Church was well capable of discussing their beliefs and deciding what was right or wrong.
    And we have the same for the lost gospels. The gnostic gospels only survived because monks who were ordered to destroy them, after church leaders decided they didn't like them and they were to be destroyed, hide them away.
    Yes, we do have citations from the Gnostic Gospels, but they occur in works that are dated much later than the works containing citations from the four Gospels.

    It's certainly true that some church leaders destroyed works they considered heretical, but certainly not in the all-powerful way that is presented in the Da-Vinci-Code style urban legends. So, why did Christians get rid of these books? Because they had already figured out they were a load of old crock.
    There were possibly hundreds of different sects of Christians in the early church, each with their own different beliefs. This is fact.
    There were certainly different cults and sects. That is always the case with any belief - you get people who come up with their own embellishments of anything. However, you generally get such a variety of beliefs when there was an original version from which the rest all stemmed. Therefore it makes sense to find the oldest version of a belief instead of relying on stuff that was written decades, or even centuries, later.
    The 4 canonical gospels 'made the cut' because the church leaders decided the others were heresay. There was even violence against some of the other sects who held different beliefs using different gospels. At the end of the 3rd century there were over 20 gospels as well as other texts. Almost 80 different unique works altogether.
    The problem with this rather creative rewriting of history is that it completely ignores the facts.

    By the end of the Third Century Christianity had already spread beyond the Roman Empire (for example, to India). These churches recognised no primacy for Rome and it would have been physically impossible for any hierarchy to have forced them to reject any books at all. Yet we find that these churches used the same four Gospels as the Church in the West.

    I'm quite sure that there were over 80 works at that time that were looselly based on Christianity - in fact I would have supposed the number to have been much higher. The inventiveness of that period in respct to religion meant that there were any number of cults and sects in operation. However, that has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that Christianity was forming its own canon of Scripture and maintaining a particular body of doctrine that was consistent with that Scripture.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    Gnostic Thomas is a redaction of an earlier text which is probably as old as Quelle. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas.html


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    Gnostic Thomas is a redaction of an earlier text which is probably as old as Quelle. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas.html

    So these fragments of a 'Gospel' are supposedly a redaction of an earlier hypothetical book that is earlier than another hypothetical book?

    Here's what tickles me - the same people who want to make a song and dance about the Gospel of Thomas try to argue that the biblical books are unreliable and we can't really know how they originally read. Yet the biblical books have an abundance of complete manuscripts, citations, and other evidence supporting them. So, by the same logic, we can't have the foggiest clue what the Gospel of Thomas actually said, if it existed at all prior to 200 AD, and if it was a Gnostic Gospel at all.

    You can't have your cake and eat it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    PDN wrote: »
    So, by the same logic, we can't have the foggiest clue what the Gospel of Thomas actually said

    Well yes, we can only have a rough idea, same as with all the other Gospels that were written by men.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 789 ✭✭✭Slav


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    PDN wrote: »
    So, by the same logic, we can't have the foggiest clue what the Gospel of Thomas actually said
    Well yes, we can only have a rough idea, same as with all the other Gospels that were written by men.
    Thanks God, Christians do not follow that logic and therefore they have a good idea of what both canonical and apocryphal scriptures authors were trying to say. :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    Slav wrote: »
    Thanks God, Christians do not follow that logic and therefore they have a good idea of what both canonical and apocryphal scriptures authors were trying to say. :)

    Yes thanks God, the first followers of Jesus were never at all called Christians but something else entirely and so we therefore have a good idea of the twisting that has been done. :)


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 789 ✭✭✭Slav


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    Yes thanks God, the first followers of Jesus were never at all called Christians but something else entirely and so we therefore have a good idea of the twisting that has been done. :)
    From what point exactly Ebionites started calling themselves Christians and became mainstream/orthodox?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    Slav wrote: »
    From what point exactly Ebionites started calling themselves Christians and became mainstream/orthodox?

    They didn't start calling themselves Christians. The greek/hellenistic followers of Stephen who were run out of Jerusalem in Acts ended up in Antioch and it was these people who were first called Christians.

    The people who stayed behind in Jerusalem never went by such a name but were variously called "the poor", "Nazarene's" or the "followers of the Way". After the fall of the Temple they appear to have dispersed and eventually were persecuted out of existance by other Jews and Christians.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 789 ✭✭✭Slav


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    They didn't start calling themselves Christians. The greek/hellenistic followers of Stephen who were run out of Jerusalem in Acts ended up in Antioch and it was these people who were first called Christians.

    The people who stayed behind in Jerusalem never went by such a name but were variously called "the poor", "Nazarene's" or the "followers of the Way". After the fall of the Temple they appear to have dispersed and eventually were persecuted out of existance by other Jews and Christians.
    In this case I'm seriously struggling understanding your logic. Assuming that the followers of Christ in Jerusalem did not call themselves Christians (and even that many of them had nothing to do with the mainstream Christianity) you are coming to the conclusion that this should give us a good idea of some twisting....


  • Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,714 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    PDN wrote: »

    Compare this with:
    Matthew 50-100 AD.
    Mark 50-70 AD.
    Luke 59-100 AD.
    John 85-110AD.

    What was the life exptectancy of somebody in Isreal at this time? If there was eye witnesses they would have been children around the time of the crucifiction right?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    Mickeroo wrote: »
    What was the life exptectancy of somebody in Isreal at this time? If there was eye witnesses they would have been children around the time of the crucifiction right?

    The crucifixion probably occurred around 33 AD. So if we take the earlier dates in the ranges, that would mean an 18 year old eye witness would be 35 or older when Matthew and Mark were written, 44 or older when Luke was written, and 70 or older when John was written.

    I believe average life expectancy back then was about 40, but that is irrelevant because of high rates of infant mortality. Once somebody lived into adulthood then there was no reason why they should not live to 60 or 70 or more. Church tradition records that John died in Ephesus aged about 100, which would make even the later dates perfectly possible.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    Slav wrote: »
    In this case I'm seriously struggling understanding your logic. Assuming that the followers of Christ in Jerusalem did not call themselves Christians (and even that many of them had nothing to do with the mainstream Christianity) you are coming to the conclusion that this should give us a good idea of some twisting....

    Indeed there were two sets of followers, one being hellenistic and Pauline in nature and it is from this schism where Christianity springs. As the orthodoxy of this church grew it was duty bound to negate the writings and teachings of the Jerusalem followers who were Hebrews and did not believe that Jesus was divine.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Mickeroo wrote: »
    What was the life exptectancy of somebody in Isreal at this time? If there was eye witnesses they would have been children around the time of the crucifiction right?


    Life expectancy? About the same as today I imagine. It's just that fewer than today reached that age.


  • Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,714 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    Life expectancy? About the same as today I imagine. It's just that fewer than today reached that age.

    Yeah thats what life expetancy means........your point?? PDN just said the average life expectancy was 40, almost half what it is today. Thanks to medicine and cleaner living environments people tend to live longer.


    Thanks for clearing that up PDN. :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 341 ✭✭postcynical


    Mickeroo wrote: »
    Yeah thats what life expetancy means........your point?? PDN just said the average life expectancy was 40, almost half what it is today. Thanks to medicine and cleaner living environments people tend to live longer.


    Thanks for clearing that up PDN. :)

    Not quite. More babies survive. Adults have comparable life expectancies IIRC. Anyway the point was that the Gospels are more like primary sources from a historical perspective than like Chinese whispers.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,981 ✭✭✭monosharp


    PDN wrote: »
    Do you ever feel bad about asking seemingly honest questions when you're really just looking for an opportunity to pick a quarrel and to make slurs against somebody else's character and integrity?

    When I answer a question, i do so honestly and if theres no concrete opinion I provide both opinions.

    I almost accepted what you wrote as fact until I checked myself.

    You provide whichever opinion suits your view. I don't like that.
    There is indeed an early camp that dates Thomas earlier, just as there is an early camp that dates the four canonical gospels much earlier. If I was ignoring opinions that didn't suit my own personal beliefs then I would just have given you the early dates for the four Gospels and said that they were all written before 64 AD. However, I wanted to compare like with like so I gave the date ranges for both the canonical Gospels and the Gnostic Gospels that are accepted by the majority of scholars.

    In all fairness, doesn't the 'early' camp of Matthew need to provide evidence that whoever wrote it could see the future since the author references events well after the 'early' dates provided.
    It's certainly true that some church leaders destroyed works they considered heretical, but certainly not in the all-powerful way that is presented in the Da-Vinci-Code style urban legends. So, why did Christians get rid of these books? Because they had already figured out they were a load of old crock.

    Never said it was ala davinci code, not a fan btw.

    But to say Christians got rid of these books because they figured out they were a 'load of crock' is just plain wrong.

    There were many many texts that were very popular with early christians that were against the 'mainstream' and were destroyed.

    What about the gospel of Peter ? Not a gnostic gospel and not complete, but why is it rejected ?
    By the end of the Third Century Christianity had already spread beyond the Roman Empire (for example, to India). These churches recognised no primacy for Rome and it would have been physically impossible for any hierarchy to have forced them to reject any books at all. Yet we find that these churches used the same four Gospels as the Church in the West.

    Eventually and after Rome started to extend its power. The Church sent people to churches all over Europe to destroy unwanted texts.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,240 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    monosharp wrote: »
    Do you ever feel bad twisting things like that ? I don't mean for other people. I mean feel personally bad that you need to ignore opinions that don't agree with your own personal beliefs ?

    I have to say that I am becoming increasingly frustrated by your largely negative interations with people on this forum.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,981 ✭✭✭monosharp


    I have to say that I am becoming increasingly frustrated by your largely negative interations with people on this forum.
    PDN wrote:
    How about you actually listen to answers that are given to you in good faith instead of acting like an obnoxious pratt?

    I didn't insult PDN, I didn't call him anything, I asked him a question.

    Need I point out that he broke the charter ? Need I also point out that from the quote from me you just gave, I did not break the charter.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,240 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    Did I mention anything about the charter? I'm talking about your general attitude towards Christianity. We all get it! You don't like it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,981 ✭✭✭monosharp


    Did I mention anything about the charter? I'm talking about your general attitude towards Christianity. We all get it! You don't like it.

    Because I don't like blind acceptance ?

    I have no problem with Christ, I have no problem with the Bible, I have no problem with believing in God/Jesus etc.

    My problem is this "This is the truth, accept it. Anything contrary to this is Wrong" attiude.

    I ask a question and instead of a logical answer I get blind faith.

    example ->

    Why didn't the animals kill eachother on Noahs boat
    Answer: God did it

    Why don't Christians like the gnostic gospels ?
    Answer: They're not true

    What makes the Gnostic gospels false and the Canonical gospels true ?
    Answer: Evidence in the Canonical gospels.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    monosharp wrote: »
    When I answer a question, i do so honestly and if theres no concrete opinion I provide both opinions.
    Really, well I must have missed those posts.

    I tell you what, I have already demonstrated my ability to give both sides by listing both the early and late dates for the canonical Gospels. This is even though I personally think the late dates are based on subjective assumptions and poor logic. However, I wanted to be even-handed.

    Now it's your turn. Since you are proclaiming your own fairness and my sneaky bias - how about you show us all those places in your posts where you gave both opinions? Where did you post all the stuff that actually argued against your views, but you included it in a noble commitment to provide both opinions?
    I almost accepted what you wrote as fact until I checked myself.
    I stated pure fact. I gave you the date ranges accepted by the majority of scholars for the canonical Gospels (even though I don't agree with them personally) and excluded the minority who go for earlier dates (whom I do agree with). That was fact.

    I gave you date ranges, using the same criteria, for the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Judas. That was fact.

    I explained that dating the Gospel of Thomas is more problematic, but that most scholars go for the mid 2nd Century. As with the canonical Gospels I excluded the minority who go for earlier dates. That was fact.

    You, in response, focused on the minority who favour an early date for Thomas and ignored the fact that I had been scrupulously even-handed. However, instead of concentrating on the issues under discussion like any normal person you chose to launch a quite unprovoked and scurillous attack on my integrity. I find that highly offensive.
    You provide whichever opinion suits your view. I don't like that.
    No, I provide opinions that I believe to be true and accurate, but which contradict your ill-informed and anti-Christian predjudices. You don't like that.
    In all fairness, doesn't the 'early' camp of Matthew need to provide evidence that whoever wrote it could see the future since the author references events well after the 'early' dates provided.
    No, but your use of such circular logic certainly demonstrates the subjective bias of those who exclude an early date, and gives us a pretty good idea why you post here.

    You want to discuss which books that speak about a miracle worker are 'wrong' or 'right' but you exclude the possibility that the miracle worker can perform a pretty minor miracle such as predicting the future?

    If you exclude the possibility that Jesus could predict the future then both the canonical Gospels and the Gnostic Gospels are 'wrong' - since they plainly speak of a miracle worker. Therefore your question about which are 'right' and 'wrong' has no meaning whatsoever and is incapable of discussion - which would reveal you to be a troll.
    Never said it was ala davinci code, not a fan btw.
    It is DaVinci-Code-style. Poor scholarship, poor history, but convincing to the ignorant who want an excuse to stick their fingers up at Christianity.
    But to say Christians got rid of these books because they figured out they were a 'load of crock' is just plain wrong.
    No, it's perfectly correct. Christians believe that sound doctrine is truth and so valuable, and that heresy is error and so is harmful. Therefore, if Christians decided these books were heretical (something you have already admitted) - then that means they figured them to be a load of crock.
    There were many many texts that were very popular with early christians that were against the 'mainstream' and were destroyed.

    What about the gospel of Peter ? Not a gnostic gospel and not complete, but why is it rejected ?
    Probably because virtualy all scholars believe it to be later than the canonical Gospels, and maybe because the early Christians realised that a walking, talking, living Cross didn't quite fit in with the facts about Jesus that had been handed down to them by the apostles (although Cliff Richard could have turned it into a song).
    Eventually and after Rome started to extend its power. The Church sent people to churches all over Europe to destroy unwanted texts.
    So what about the churches that lay beyond Rome's reach and which rejected Rome's authority - both ecclesiastical and temporal? What about the churches in Georgia, Armenia, Persia, India etc? How come they used the same four Gospels as anyone else? It is plainly unhistorical nonsense to suggest that Rome had power in those regions to destroy unwanted texts or to force unwilling Christians to abandon lots of beloved other Gospels. Your theory is contradicted by the facts.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    Yes thanks God, the first followers of Jesus were never at all called Christians but something else entirely and so we therefore have a good idea of the twisting that has been done. :)
    Greek Χριστιανός (Christianos); Christian:
    1 Peter 4:16 εἰ δὲ ὡς Χριστιανός μὴ αἰσχυνέσθω δοξαζέτω δὲ τὸν θεὸν ἐν τῷ μέρει τούτῳ
    1 Peter 4:16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.

    Acts 11:26 And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

    Acts 26:28 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian.”


    Note: Christian was used by both the Jewish and the Gentile believers, and by the unbelievers in reference to them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 64 ✭✭Zaynzma


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Greek Χριστιανός (Christianos); Christian:
    1 Peter 4:16 εἰ δὲ ὡς Χριστιανός μὴ αἰσχυνέσθω δοξαζέτω δὲ τὸν θεὸν ἐν τῷ μέρει τούτῳ
    1 Peter 4:16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.

    Acts 11:26 And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

    Acts 26:28 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian.”

    Note: Christian was used by both the Jewish and the Gentile believers, and by the unbelievers in reference to them.

    If the argument put forward is that the original followers of Jesus were sidelined and their books didn't make it into the New Testament, then quoting from the NT doesn't really prove anything does it? The point was that the early followers of Jesus (Ebionites) didn't call themselves Christians, because they were Jews who believed Jesus had come not to destroy the law but to uphold it. No doubt there were others who DID call themselves Christians, and they were the ones whose documents made it into the new 'Holy Book'. Even so, there are ambiguities in their documents too....

    sorry for butting in.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    Zaynzma wrote: »
    If the argument put forward is that the original followers of Jesus were sidelined and their books didn't make it into the New Testament, then quoting from the NT doesn't really prove anything does it? The point was that the early followers of Jesus (Ebionites) didn't call themselves Christians, because they were Jews who believed Jesus had come not to destroy the law but to uphold it. No doubt there were others who DID call themselves Christians, and they were the ones whose documents made it into the new 'Holy Book'. Even so, there are ambiguities in their documents too....

    sorry for butting in.
    Right, so the real followers of Christ were the Ebionites, not the apostles. And the New Testament writings are the fictions of the latter group. The real Christ is not the one described in the New Testament, but another who preached salvation by the Law.

    That means the Jewish establishment made a big mistake in having him crucified, since he supported their understanding of the Law. But of course, maybe he wasn't crucified, since that is a New Testament account. Maybe the 'real' Jesus settled down as a respected rabbi and raised a family.

    It must have been later generations of Gentiles who made up the story and foolishly many Jews bought into it. That's why we have both Christian and Jewish accounts of a Messiah/false messiah called Jesus of Nazareth.

    It all makes sense, if one has the imagination.:rolleyes:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,318 ✭✭✭O'Coonassa


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Note: Christian was used by both the Jewish and the Gentile believers, and by the unbelievers in reference to them.

    Do you have any Hebrew texts from the Jewish believers to back up your assertion? I thought they'd all been destroyed as heresy. Jews could never worship in the Temple and proclaim a human being to be God, they'd have got stoned to death like Stephen. There was a definite split and despite best efforts even the Pauline author of Acts can't paper over the crack.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    O'Coonassa wrote: »
    Do you have any Hebrew texts from the Jewish believers to back up your assertion? I thought they'd all been destroyed as heresy. Jews could never worship in the Temple and proclaim a human being to be God, they'd have got stoned to death like Stephen. There was a definite split and despite best efforts even the Pauline author of Acts can't paper over the crack.
    Hebrew texts, I'm not aware of. But for a Hebrew believer, Peter is a prime example. I've already quoted his use of the term Christian.

    Yes, the apostolic church faced great persecution from the Jewish leaders, and their practice of meeting in the Temple was soon curtailed. Stephen, James and many others were killed, imprisoned or driven to exile. Those who remained met in their own dwellings. Paul ventured into the Temple on his return from missionary activity outside Israel, but was recognised and arrested.

    If the Church was Ebionite, they would have been just another Jewish sect and found a space like the Pharisees and their opponents the Sadducees. But Christ preached something that none of these could accept, hence the hatred and contempt He and His people endured.


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